The Nonlinear Library EA - On being an EA for decades by Michelle Hutchinson
Feb 12, 2024
08:45
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: On being an EA for decades, published by Michelle Hutchinson on February 12, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
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 both made good on their plans to write books and donate their salaries above £20k[1] a year.
And Holly Morgan is who I turned to a couple of weeks ago when I needed help thinking through work stress.
Here's what I wrote speculating about why I might drift away from EA. Note that the email below was written quickly and just trying to gesture at things I might worry about in future, I was paying very little attention to the details. The partner referenced became my husband a year and a half later, and we now have a four year old.
On 10 February 2012 18:14, Michelle Hutchinson wrote:
Writing this was even sadder than I expected it to be.
1. Holly's and my taste in music drove the rest of the HIH[2] crazy, and they murdered us both.
2. The feeling that I was letting down my parents, husband and children got the better of me, and I sought better paid employment.
3. Toby, Will and Nick got replaced by trustees whose good judgement and intelligence I didn't have nearly as much faith in, so I no longer felt fully supportive of the organisation - I was worried it was soon going to become preachy rather than effective, or even dangerous (researching future technology without much foresight).
4. I realised there were jobs that wouldn't involve working (or even emailing co-workers) Friday evenings :p
5. I remembered how much I loved reading philosophy all day, and teaching tutorials, and unaccountably Oxford offered me a stipendiary lectureship, so I returned to academia.
6. [My partner] got lazy career-wise, and I wanted a nice big house and expensive food, so I got a higher paid job.
7. I accidentally emailed confidential member information to our whole mailing list / said the wrong thing to one of our big funders / made a wrong call that got us into legal trouble, and it was politely suggested to me that the best way I could help the EA movement was by being nowhere near it.
8. When it became clear that although I rationally agreed with the moral positions of GWWC and CEA, most of my emotional motivation for working for them came from not wanting to let down the other [team members], it was decided really I wasn't a nice enough person to have a position of responsibility in such a great organisation.
9. [My partner] got a job too far away from other CEA people for me to be able to work for CEA and be with him. I chose him.
10. When we had children I took maternity leave, and then couldn't bear to leave the children to return to work.
11. I tried to give a talk about GWWC to a large audience, fainted with fright, and am now in a coma.
When I wrote the email, I thought it was really quite likely that in 10 years I'd have left the organisation and community. Looking around the world, it seemed like a lot of people become less idealistic as they grow older. And looking inside myself, it felt pretty contingent that I happened to fall in with a group of people who supp...
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 both made good on their plans to write books and donate their salaries above £20k[1] a year.
And Holly Morgan is who I turned to a couple of weeks ago when I needed help thinking through work stress.
Here's what I wrote speculating about why I might drift away from EA. Note that the email below was written quickly and just trying to gesture at things I might worry about in future, I was paying very little attention to the details. The partner referenced became my husband a year and a half later, and we now have a four year old.
On 10 February 2012 18:14, Michelle Hutchinson wrote:
Writing this was even sadder than I expected it to be.
1. Holly's and my taste in music drove the rest of the HIH[2] crazy, and they murdered us both.
2. The feeling that I was letting down my parents, husband and children got the better of me, and I sought better paid employment.
3. Toby, Will and Nick got replaced by trustees whose good judgement and intelligence I didn't have nearly as much faith in, so I no longer felt fully supportive of the organisation - I was worried it was soon going to become preachy rather than effective, or even dangerous (researching future technology without much foresight).
4. I realised there were jobs that wouldn't involve working (or even emailing co-workers) Friday evenings :p
5. I remembered how much I loved reading philosophy all day, and teaching tutorials, and unaccountably Oxford offered me a stipendiary lectureship, so I returned to academia.
6. [My partner] got lazy career-wise, and I wanted a nice big house and expensive food, so I got a higher paid job.
7. I accidentally emailed confidential member information to our whole mailing list / said the wrong thing to one of our big funders / made a wrong call that got us into legal trouble, and it was politely suggested to me that the best way I could help the EA movement was by being nowhere near it.
8. When it became clear that although I rationally agreed with the moral positions of GWWC and CEA, most of my emotional motivation for working for them came from not wanting to let down the other [team members], it was decided really I wasn't a nice enough person to have a position of responsibility in such a great organisation.
9. [My partner] got a job too far away from other CEA people for me to be able to work for CEA and be with him. I chose him.
10. When we had children I took maternity leave, and then couldn't bear to leave the children to return to work.
11. I tried to give a talk about GWWC to a large audience, fainted with fright, and am now in a coma.
When I wrote the email, I thought it was really quite likely that in 10 years I'd have left the organisation and community. Looking around the world, it seemed like a lot of people become less idealistic as they grow older. And looking inside myself, it felt pretty contingent that I happened to fall in with a group of people who supp...