[uplifter]

Thank you for elaborating. I appreciate the thoughtful approach to effectiveness, no pun intended. I guess I'm was just concerned with the risk of cargo-cultism where an arbitrary target like 10% of income donated to charity can become the goal in itself rather than a means to an end. That is a risk with any system I supposed, including many traditional religions and their ethical frameworks, and I was curious about tenets or axioms within EA to mitigate that risk.

[eddsh1994]

That’s fair! The 10% Giving What We Can is a minority of EA in general, specifically people who subscribe to the idea of “Earning to Give”. There are other ideas too, such as people who argue working in nuclear policy is important, or AI Alignment research, or one of my favorites Allfed [0]. Personally for me, a non-degree holding individual who would still like to use my career to benefit others, donating a chunk of my pay check to charities saving the most lives is my form of ‘effective altruism’.

[0] https://allfed.info/