William MacAskill explains in 02014 where #EA came from as a term: in October 02011 he asked the 80,000 Hours team how to rebrand (rather than “do-gooder”) and in December they voted for “Center for Effective Altruism”. The voters were, as far as he could remember three years later, himself (Will MacAskill (then ‘Crouch’)), Toby Ord, Nick Beckstead, Michelle Hutchinson, Holly Morgan, Mark Lee, Tom Ash, Matt Wage, Ben Todd, Tom Rowlands, Niel Bowerman, Robbie Shade, Matt Gibb, Richard Batty, Sally Murray, Rob Gledhill, and Andreas Mogensen. #history
on 02026-09-22depressing #video about the #history of efforts against #malaria, ending by explaining how things are getting worse since #Trump II. Basically an infomercial for Giving What We Can. Not a very high-information-density video, with a lot of talking-head filler and stock footage. #EA
on 02026-07-31simple cluelessness and complex cluelessness in #EA. #toread
on 02026-04-09Cash benchmarking as a standard for #charity giving. “unless you have a plausible story about why a charity outperforms just giving the beneficiaries some money, you shouldn’t do it.” #EA
on 02026-04-07