Episode Details
Back to Episodes“You can’t join the secret inner circle of cool effective altruists” by ozymandias
Description
I, and a lot of other people I know, seem to believe something like this:
Somewhere out there, there are the cool, high-impact effective altruists who are really having a positive effect on the world. They are all invited to lots of awesome parties with other cool, high-impact effective altruists. They know all kinds of secrets that us normal people don’t know, and they laugh at us for our out-of-touch takes. They can get jobs and grants by having a fifteen-minute conversation with a friend or a friend of a friend. They don’t have to slog through endless and dispiriting job applications, throwing out a hundred apps to get nothing back but “we had a very strong pool this time.” They never sit at home alone on weekends scrolling TikTok and contemplating doing their laundry. They can go to all the coolest co-working spaces AND EA Global.
This viewpoint is (a) not true (b) unhelpful for achieving any reasonable goal.
That Is Not How Anything Works
I am, arguably, part of the secret circle of cool effective altruists. I have friends who work for Anthropic and Lightcone Infrastructure. I am at least friendly acquaintances with many writers you’ve heard [...]
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Outline:
(01:09) That Is Not How Anything Works
(03:56) We Would Not Want It To Be How Anything Works
(07:43) There Are Better Ways To Achieve Your Goals
(10:47) You Will Never Join The Secret Inner Circle of Cool Effective Altruists
The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
September 17th, 2026
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.