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Notes -
I think EA does have a fair share of pure altruists. I know of at least four people that have gone celibate over the last few years as a result of being too concentrated on their jobs (and I claim they could have had romantic success if they had chosen to). I think coordinating around "we are doing the most good" also has an easy attractor in pure altruism.
The thing I was pointing at is that the job of the apparatchiks was to nominally be pure altruists towards the population of Russia as a whole, and this predictably failed.
That there are some "pure" altruists in EA is not what I am picking at. The essays I reference are targeted at that very phenomenon because it is a thing some people do. Selection effects are what they are. You are making points without the knowledge of what is already been discussed on the topic. Go google "avoiding EA burnout" and you'll find a plenty of stuff on this front.
The thing I am pointing at is that comparing Soviet anything to EA is apples to hand grenades. Donors are not coerced. OpenPhil analysts are not employees of the state, and aimed at "doing the most good" insofar as they can figure that out. The failure mode that is most apt is the standard "NGO Industrial Complex" where organizations exist to exist, not to actually solve the problem in their mission statement.
I think you are empirically wrong on this. E.g., if you go to one of the most upvoted such essays you will see my comment at the top. But it's been a while. Maybe there is much that I have forgotten.
https://www.google.com/search?q=avoiding+effective+altruism+burnout
No, this really wasn't much better than posting a LMGTFY. Don't do this.
When someone obstinately denies easily checked facts what do you suggest?
(a) Let it go and disengage. (b) Provide links to specific citations and proactively provide an explanation of their relevance. (c) Consider the possibility that they are not "ignoring facts" but that you are both interpreting the same evidence in a way that caters to your own biases and that you need to actually make an argument.
You've clearly never debated a flat earther and it shows.
More seriously, the right tool for the job of "is this a pretty common thing or not" was in fact a google search showing a bunch of available examples.
It shouldn't be against the rules to succinctly provide evidence someone is full of BS. When they're denying the very existence of the evidence. When they refuse to confirm their claimed absence of that evidence. Of a pretty simple issue. Trivially demonstrated facts of matter.
Also, my link was on the tail end of a series of arguments. It wasn't just a no-context injection.
"Don't do this" ought to also apply to people who won't do the very basics of epistemic due diligence.
There are many EA thought posts on avoiding purity burnout and mental health crises. There are not very many AC units in Europe. Anyone arguing otherwise is just failing very basic standards of reason.
Wrong.
If a flat earther showed up here, you'd be required to follow the same rules.
I'm telling you what your available options are here. Not everywhere else on the Internet, but here.
Mods do not judge the quality of arguments here. People can make bad arguments. You may point out why they're bad.
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