Reflections after attending the CEA Intro to EA Virtual Program in Summer 2023 - Chapter 1

By Andreas P @ 2023-09-25T18:05 (+8)

This past summer I joined the Intro to EA Virtual Program by CEA as my first real exposure to EA concepts and the EA community. I found the course to be eye opening and very effective. I would recommend it for anyone remotely new to EA. The course dives into different EA concepts and topics, ideas and thoughts including many different cause areas. Throughout the weeks in the course, doing the assigned readings, exercises and partaking in discussions with my facilitator and fellow attendees, my connection to EA grew. 

Because of the course’s effectiveness and impact on me, and because I have a personal goal to become more reflective in my life and work, I’ve decided to share my reflections gained from my time in the course (and follow on thoughts after completing the course). What I share is a combination of thoughts, questions, ideas and insights that stemmed from the course. Admittedly they are still shallow and unrefined but serve as the starting point for my own personal research to follow. I figured maybe it would be interesting to the forum readers, anyone considering the course, or attendees currently in or who have finished it. I’ll be following the feedback, so feel free to comment about anything that connects.

I will break down the content by chapters that correlate to those of the EA handbook on the forum, which is what the course structure was based on. 

Chapter 1 – The Effectiveness Mindset

• Often times when I see discussions/debates (particularly where one side wishes to highlight that something isn’t up to par and should be improved) the other side retorts that things are so much better than they used to be. To my mind that never made sense because I follow a mindset of continuous improvement. Naturally for me it’s always about making progress, even if we’ve made a lot of it already. But I was never able to put that concept into the simplicity as the readings in this chapter did by saying that we should hold the below three truths all at the same time, always: 
  • The world is much better than it used to be (Past)
  • The world is horrible (Present)
  • The world can become much better (Future)
  • I think anyone who can’t accept all three of these ideas simultaneously would be critically hampered from effectively helping the world
• EA should have a personal flavor for each individual to work best and achieve the greatest impact
  • For better or worse, humans are emotional beings. By our nature, we are more emotional than logical, so to follow a structure that completely removes emotion for logic might be removing a very powerful force as it relates to humanity and our potential impact. My suspicion is that we need some type of balance between the two to create the most effective movement we can. If we feel especially drawn or pulled to a specific cause area or direction, I think it’s most likely related to our emotions rather than logic or analysis. It’s related to innate preferences to a large degree, and I don’t see it as a bad thing. Following along with that connection is probably not only personally best, but because of the stronger connection, it might objectively be the most impactful thing to do as well. I sincerely believe a stronger connection to what we’re doing translates to better and more impactful work. It’s not always about finding the most impact, it’s about creating the most impact where we feel called.
  • This idea has been mentioned before with “fuzzies” and “utilons” and it’s not a bad thing to follow. Just be aware of which is which. We have to analyze and develop some kind of understanding of why specific cause areas mean more to us than others. This will help to get to know ourselves and be able to maximize our impact in EA work. We shouldn’t be afraid to acknowledge or even pursue the fuzzies, but we should understand our motivations. 
• A lot of EA focus is on cost-effectiveness of direct impact, for example on direct lives or DALYs saved by an intervention. It seems to me that EA does a great job of analyzing impact through cost-effectiveness. But each direct action has an immediate reaction, and follow-on ripple effects. Like dropping a stone in water (action) first we have the disturbance (reaction) and then after that goes away we have ripples that are created. I’m not sure if EA puts enough emphasis on follow on ripples as opposed to that first direct reaction. 
  • We do a very good job of calculating the effectiveness of the primary reaction to an action. For example, a donation to a charity can save x number of lives. But are we asking what the indirect, follow-on ripples will be? What good effect will ripple out from those lives saved. Would those helped directly then have capacity to help others in meaningful ways? For example, if a specific action has a reaction that saves X number of lives, and the follow-ripple effect saves Y number of lives, as compared to a second specific action that has a direct reaction that saves only .8X number of lives, but has a follow-on ripple effect that saves 2*Y number of lives…which is better? I’m not sure how feasible it would be to research this ripple effectiveness but we could also consider a 2^nd and a 3^rd ripple (or even more) in the analysis too. To my understanding most cost-effectiveness models today consider the impact of the reaction to an intervention, but not the ripple effects. Maybe we should have both a “direct cost-effectiveness” and “indirect cost-effectiveness” analysis for each intervention. 
• We are in triage every second of every day
  • This is admittedly a very sobering thought, but if we look around it can’t really be denied. To me this isn’t a thought that we should hold actively every minute of every day. That’s just too depressing. Instead think about it sporadically. This way it reinforces to each individual how important their involvement in the work of helping the world is. It creates a high-level perspective that is needed when the everyday part of life might pull our focus and attention to the smaller daily tasks and troubles. But it should absolutely never be forgotten.

Thank you for taking the time to read through these reflections and feel free to leave any feedback you think relevant. I am especially open to resources that expand on these thoughts further! 

PS. Look out for the chapter 2 reflection post soon