Episode Details

Crosspost of a blog article.

Andrew Sullivan's most impactful work came in the shadow of death.

Tyler Cowen declared Sullivan the generation's most impactful public intellectual. Sullivan was hugely influential in the fight for gay marriage, as a thoughtful conservative advocate of gay marriage who was himself gay. He also pioneered the early art of blogging, with his early work leaving an indelible mark on how the craft developed. I’ve been grateful to have Sullivan occasionally link to my blog and I consider him one of the foremost public intellectuals of today.

A lot of Sullivan's most influential work came when he believed he would soon die. He was diagnosed with HIV in the days when it was a death sentence. He thought he would die young, in his 30s, and wanted to leave some mark on the world before he was taken from it. He wanted to make the case for people like him being afforded equal rights in the few years he had left. It is an amazing miracle that treatment for HIV was developed, so that millions of people like Andrew didn’t have to die.

There's an expression “live every day as if it's your last.” [...]

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First published:
April 4th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMxPmqFRDnEZrc8uo/if-you-re-to-die

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.