One of the problems with being an avowed altruist is that it's hard to talk about it with other people without coming across like you're trying to claim you're better than them.

One of the problems with being an aspiring effective altruist is that it's hard to talk about it with other people without coming across like you're trying to claim you're better than everyone else, including other avowed altruists, and definitely including non-altruistic plebes.

(This, I think, is something of a barrier to effective altruism becoming a more popular thing, and I'd like to see it change.)

But if I can't write about this in the locus of the interval between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I can't write about it at all, and that would be really quite sad for me, so here goes. I really, really don't mean to brag or guilt-shame anyone else -- I am trying to normalize talking casually about altruism, because I think a world where we can talk about it without awkwardness is a better world than this.

My brother asked me the other day: "What do you want for Christmas? Give me two things, one which someone could reasonably buy you, and another which you'd ask for from a wish-granting genie who popped out of a lamp."

My answer for the first was an Oculus Rift; my answer for the second was that malaria be eradicated tomorrow.

Now, of course I would actually ask a genie that all communicable diseases be eradicated tomorrow, or that all

One of the problems with being an avowed altruist is that it's hard to talk about it with other people without coming across like you're trying to claim you're better than them.

One of the problems with being an aspiring effective altruist is that it's hard to talk about it with other people without coming across like you're trying to claim you're better than everyone else, including other avowed altruists, and definitely including non-altruistic plebes.

(This, I think, is something of a barrier to effective altruism becoming a more popular thing, and I'd like to see it change.)

But if I can't write about this in the locus of the interval between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I can't write about it at all, and that would be really quite sad for me, so here goes.

In a story which is, at least, not completely apocryphal, tennis player Arthur Ashe was dying from acute AIDS when, in response to a fan's letter asking "Why did God select for you this fate?", he wrote:

The world over, 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals -- when I was holding a cup I never asked God 'Why me?'

And today in pain I should not be asking God 'Why me?'

Well, one's modus tollens is another's modus ponens^[?] -- maybe we should be more in the habit of asking "Why me?"

But

The only thing I have to say about #GamerGate is: Felicia Day, who is a person you know of if you were a nerd who grew up with the internet, has a really nice post on her own blog entitled "The Only Thing I Have to Say about Gamer Gate". For those of you less plugged into the internet gaming community, #GamerGate is more or less a whole lot of uproar by some sexist gamers who are angry that it's not okay in this day and age to be a sexist gamer. Writes Day:

"I have not said many public things about Gamer Gate. I hav tried to leave it alone, aside from a few @ replies on Twitter that journalists have decided to use in their articles, siding me against the hashtag. Why have I remained mostly silent?

Self-protection and fear.

...

HOW SICK IS THAT?"

More at her blog; I'm not going to steal her thunder.

Epilogue: After some trolls, in response to her post, issued public threats against Day and published her address, phone number, and other personal information online, she wrote on Facebook:

I posted this essay yesterday afternoon on Tumblr. Yes, personal information was leaked shortly after, but the

In what I promise is the last Excellent Sheep-related thing I'll link to this month, here's an excellent two-sided discussion between Harry Lewis and Bill Deresiewicz on excellence, souls, sheep, and related things in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Both sides make excellent points, though perhaps it's no surprise which I think comes out on top. Excerpt from Lewis:

"'Excellence' appears, in different forms, in the titles of both our books. I meant it in a positive sense; I think American universities produce excellent results, in both people and ideas. On the human side it’s an incomplete form of excellence -- not enough arete -- but the research university is the greatest structure ever created for free thought, discovery, and creation. The competition for excellence drives that engine, for all the pathological side effects we both describe. Undergraduates can and do join that process at a high level while they are still young enough to have their eyes opened.

But you write to college students: 'You want