Self-doubt is natural and logical.

Maybe in our achievement-driven, how-are-you-contributing-to-unrelenless-growth society. Indigenous cultures don't exhibit self-doubt. Neither do Buddhists. I just talked about this on my podcast.
 

In a meeting between the Dalai Lama and a group of American psychologists in 1990, one of the psychologists brought up the concept of negative self-talk. Since there are no words in Tibetan that translate into low self-esteem and self-loathing, it took quite a long time for the psychologists to convey what they meant. But this wasn’t a translation problem. It was a problem of conceptualization. Self-loathing? People do that? The Dalai Lama was incredulous. Once the Dalai Lama understood what they were saying, he turned to the Tibetan monks in the room, and after explaining what the psychologists were suggesting, he asked, “How many of you have experienced this low self-esteem, self-contempt, or self-loathing?”

Complete silence.

Here was a psychological state of mind so ubiquitous in our culture that everyone experiences it from time to time, if not every single day. Yet the Tibetans—trained since childhood in the art of a mental exercise they call meditation—acted like they were being told about some alien life form. The Dalai Lama turned back to the psychologists and asked a simple question:

“Why would you ever let your mind get like this?”

Excerpt from The Awakened Ape

I voted for more mental health funding: Vida Plena and Kaya. They increase WELLBYs with a very high ROI

I'm proud to announce the 5-minute animated short on mental health I wrote back in 2020 is finally finished! I'd love you to watch it and let me know what you think (like, share…). It's currently "unlisted" as I wait to see how the production studio wants to release it publicly. But in the meantime I'm sharing it with my extended network.

Part 2 is now available

https://aisafety.dance/p2/

Mental health org in India that follows the paraprofessional model
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/maanasi-mental-health-care-women/

#mental-health-cause-area

I appreciate your perspective Alan and trust that everyone reading this has the agency to determine for themselves what is the best use of their time. I found watching the video gave me a better understanding of the challenges and benefits of unconditional cash transfers. 

Neither Joseph nor I were taking a black-or-white view of things. My "is the world better" thought experiment is merely a first-order approximation of a complex issue. I apologize if that was not clear.

So capitalization matters. I can get behind that 😊

I’ve updated the title, but to those of you who had a problem with me asserting that engaging publicly with Give Directly qualifies someone as an EA, what criteria do you think is required for someone/something to be in EA? There’s no standards certification body, so in my estimation it comes down to “the eye of the beholder”. But curious what others think.

For example, I heavily support Vegan Outreach because their goal is to get people to go vegan as efficiently as possible. Yet they aren’t on any EA animal welfare lists, they’re not interested in going to the conferences or getting more involved in the community. They want to focus on vegan conversations. And I respect that.

Giving What We Can also said as much in their latest blog post on the pledge, noting that pledgers get to decide what they consider is effective. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/en/blog/5-things-you-ve-got-wrong-about-the-giving-what-we-can-pledge