Comparing Southan’s Reading (2)

Reading Southan’s work a second time helped me to understand what Effective Altruism is and what the EA’s philosophy is. Broad concepts that I had noticed a second time that Southan put an emphasis on was giving money, the uniqueness of an artist’s work and the impact that an EA might have on the world. For the money portion, it made me connect back to the power hungry statement that EA’s make about beating your competitors. EA’s believe that the good you do comes in the form of money. Everything else you contribute is useless. The uniqueness of an artist’s work was another example because he states that every art piece or example of art out there, is already there. There isn’t anything new you are adding to the art world because it has already been created. Also, EA’s strongly believe that your final score cannot be small or negative, it has to be big and positive. With art, you are making an implication that is small and possibly negative, so it can’t be worth it anyways. I definitely reacted differently to the author’s statements after the second time reading because I realized how much more art means to the EA’s which is obviously, little to none. It also came to show me how easily someone can influence your beliefs. At first, Southan was someone writing a very dark comedy, coming to stand among a crowd of Effective Altruists and by the end of the retreat, became very weary of the dreams he was chasing. Glossing the text helped to understand the word I did not know because after reading it a second time, I looked for that word and it was presented more than once. Therefore, after using context clues and looking up the word, it made sense when I read it over again. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism )