Effective altruism criticism contest

June 2022 • Link to project →

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In the beginning of 2022, I helped set up a contest to support criticism of effective altruism.

Here is the tl;dr text from the announcement —

tl;dr: We’re running a writing contest for critically engaging with theory or work in effective altruism (EA).

Submissions can be in a range of formats (from fact-checking to philosophical critiques or major project evaluations); and can focus on a range of subject matters (from assessing empirical or normative claims to evaluating organizations and practices).

We plan on distributing $100,000, and we may end up awarding more than this amount if we get many excellent submissions.

The deadline is September 1, 2022. You can find the submission instructions below. Neither formal nor significant affiliation with effective altruism is required to enter into the contest.

We are: Lizka Vaintrob (the Content Specialist at the Centre for Effective Altruism), Fin Moorhouse (researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute), and Joshua Teperowski Monrad (biosecurity program associate at Effective Giving). The contest is funded via the FTX Future Fund Regranting Program, with organizational support from the Centre for Effective Altruism.

The winners were announced in October 2022.

Here’s an incomplete list of my favourite submissions:

And two posts about the contest itself:

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