What is Effective Altruism?
Everyone wants to do good, but many ways of doing good are ineffective or actively harmful. The EA movement arose out of a desire to make sure that attempts to do good actually work.
This led to many ideas like the following:
When choosing what to fund or work on, we shouldn't go for what's most personal or accessible to us.
We should focus on problems that are important, neglected, and tractable (which we can actually do something about).
We should evaluate the work that charities do, and value transparency and good evidence.
Our time is valuable, and we can do a lot of good with our careers.
The world is threatened by existential risks, and making it safer might be a key priority.
The suffering of some sentient beings is ignored because they don't look like us or are far away
