From a vlogbrothers video by Hank Green comes the most EA-flavored framing from a non-EA I've ever seen. In the following quote from the video he's referencing the work done by Partners in Health and supported by the YouTube community that exists around him, his brother John Green, and the work they do. More information on that project is in another recent video.
I think about this in the context of this community's work in Sierra Leone: already fewer women are dying in childbirth, and that victory is so quiet.
If 3,000 women in West Africa were trapped in a fallen building, there would be international news stories about it; there would be outcry to save them. But if 30,000 women each have a 10% chance of dying in childbirth that's the same 3,000 deaths. But due to, I think, just the way the human mind works, we are incapable of seeing that as the same kind of catastrophe, and as fixing it as the same kind of heroism. [emphasis mine]
We need to get way better at accepting the miracle of things that didn't happen, because that's where some of humanity's greatest victories are hiding. And if we don't understand that the things that didn't happen, they might very well begin happening again.
Tons of overlap in how the vlogbrothers think about their impact and EA. Great to see.
In particular, there was one episode of their podcast recently (I think it was "The Green Brothers are Often Wrong"), where they got comically close to describing themselves as EA; remarking that John was the heart (who cared a lot about people and "what was most important") and Hank was the head, being really concerned with science and truth and progress and reasoning.
They are of course aware of EA via large EA participation in their PFA donation drive, but I believe they have a distant, caricatured view of the community itself. I heard of a livestream where they were asked about it and John said something to the effect of "there's a lot of harm you can do if you only think of people as objects of analysis for you to intervene on when you should be dealing with them directly and empowering them in the ways that they decide they want to be empowered."
Aww, that is such a pity. Thanks for sharing that anecdata.
As someone who grew up watching the vlogbrothers I have always felt like we should be allies / friends! Fingers crossed, maybe one day 🤞