[Linkpost] “Effective Altruism Will Be Great Again” by Mjreard

Forum note: this post embodies the spirit of a new project I—Matt Reardon—am starting to reinvigorate in-person EA communities. I'm hiring a co-founder and I'm interested in meeting others who want to collaborate on this vision. My DMs are open.

Sequence thinkers will be forgiven and rejoice

In some fleeting moments lately, I catch glimpses of 2022—the year Effective Altruism's ascent seemed unstoppable. Universally positive (if limited) press, big groups at top universities across the world, a young EA entrepreneur was the darling of the financial industry, the first EA running for Congress calling in enormous financial and personnel resources for his campaign. More than those public-facing facts though, was a feeling on the ground that if you had a good grip on things and a plausible idea, you would get funding, go to the Bay, and make it happen.

I actually regret how slow I was to see it at the time. You could just do things, and yes, that's always been true, but at that time, you didn’t even have excuses. In my first year as an advisor at 80,000 Hours, I allowed people a lot of excuses. I think this came from [...]

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Outline:

(02:37) The Retreat

(07:03) What Greatness Demands

(10:59) Effective Altruism is Good and Right

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First published:
March 7th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uHhcqagBBkhFTTGpq/effective-altruism-will-be-great-again

Linkpost URL:
https://open.substack.com/pub/frommatter/p/effective-altruism-will-be-great

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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