A friend sent me on a lovely trip down memory lane last week. She forwarded me an email chain from 12 years ago in which we all pretended we left the EA community, and explained why. We were partly thinking through what might cause us to drift in order that we could do something to make that less likely, and partly joking around. It was a really nice reminder of how uncertain things felt back then, and how far we’ve come. Although the emails hadn’t led us to take any specific actions, almost everyone on the thread was still devoting their time to helping others as much as they can. We’re also, for the most part, still supporting each other in doing so. Of the 10 or so people on there, for example, Niel Bowerman is now my boss - CEO of 80k. Will MacAskill and Toby Ord [...] The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. ---
First published:
February 12th, 2024

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zEMvHK9Qa4pczWbJg/on-being-an-ea-for-decades
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.