Second Thoughts

Reading Southan’s text a second time made a few new things jump out at me. The first thing I realized was almost all the references he uses in the text are on the Effective Altruism website. That helped me better understand how much weight these projects held. Also on the website, there were so many different free texts and recourses you could request if you wanted to learn more about the EA community. Going onto the website took a little aggression out of the text, seeing how many people stood by this way of life and all of the educational aspects of the website leads me to believe that not all of the EA’s are antagonists.

I didn’t react differently to the text as a whole, but I did notice a few contradictory things. In the beginning of the text Southan explains where he and Hilton had met. They met at a London pub meet-up, I found it interesting that Hilton would feel comfortable attacking Southan for wanting to make a screenplay, when he can spend his money on alcohol! I suppose that’s a little ‘knit picky’, but Hilton’s stance on the subject seems like he’d believe that every penny counts. Another spot you see a glimpse of art in the EA community is when Rodley points out, “Look at Singer’s shallow-pond analogy…in a way, thats sort of an artistic, fictional parable.” I noticed this the second time around because I was reading more critically, almost trying to find flaws in the EA community to justify my own ‘selfish’ actions.

While we were ‘decoding the text’ in class, I realized some of the specific definitions and points that Southan was trying to point at. We spoke about how Southan portrays art, finding a beautiful quote by Steven Soderbergh, ending with,”…this world would be unlivable without art”. I loved this quote and Southan’s appreciation for it showed how he felt about art as well. In one paragraph on page 5, Southan explains what the ‘altruistic Ubermensch‘ could accomplish. Describing the perfect altruist meant that you’d sacrifice your dreams as an artist to make way more money conforming to what people desire most. Decoding the text also helped me read actively, while I was reading I was thinking of some of the questions we talked about in class.

Being exposed to this idea so often is making me question all of my decisions made in life. I love the idea of doing good in the world and hope to positively effect many people in my lifetime, For now, I won’t be conforming into an Effective Altruist.