A confusion I hear frequently from new EA’s working on movement building takes the following form:

1) Effective Altruism is a movement

2) Other movements have done this or that (say, accelerate movement growth using this technique X), should Effective Altruism be doing the same?

3) Other movements failed in thing Z and now most people in them are not sane, how can we avoid this?

These claims and questions rest on a reference class assumption that is false.

It is false that the reference class to reason about Effective Altruism is the movements class.

Not all movements are made alike. Although Continue reading Effective Altruism as an intensional movement →