Fighting to exist, forgetting to live. Suggesting a missing priority in EA thinking

We are excellent at avoiding death. But are we any good at preserving what makes life worth dying for?

Effective Altruism has done something rare in the history of ideas, it has given shape, language, and urgency to doing good better. From AI alignment to pandemic preparedness, from factory farming to global health, EA has transformed vague moral instincts into clear action. It has helped us identify scale, measure neglectedness, pursue tractability, and think across centuries. It’s hard to imagine any moral movement in modern history that has recalibrated global priorities this meaningfully.

But amidst this impressive work, and in full appreciation of it I want to ask whether we might be missing something subtle, but foundational. In our drive to prevent extinction and secure the long-term future, are we overlooking the quiet erosion of the very experiences that make life worth protecting? 

Are we saving humanity… while slowly forgetting how to live?

Could there be such a thing as living risk?

Existential risk focuses on preventing events that would annihilate or permanently curtail humanity’s potential. And The Precipice by Toby Ord elegantly maps these scenarios: AI catastrophe, engineered pandemics, nuclear war, climate tipping points. Crucially, he also introduces the idea of “value lock-in”  a permanent moral narrowing that would limit flourishing.

But what if there’s another form of long-term risk we’re not naming directly  one that doesn’t kill us, doesn’t enslave us, doesn’t even collapse us but hollows us?

What if humanity persists, but joy doesn’t? What if our descendants inherit a world that is optimized, coordinated, efficient but emotionally arid, culturally vacant, and existentially numb? This is the idea I’m calling living risk,  the risk that we forget how to live while trying so hard not to die.

I want to explore whether this could be a cause area in its own right.

Is living risk hiding inside the frameworks we already use?

Let’s walk through the EA cause prioritization lens:

Neglectedness

Living risk is profoundly under-discussed. While mental health is now gaining ground within EA, broader experiences of joy, awe, community, and cultural depth are still seen as secondary or “luxury concerns.” Yet, globally, the decline of these things may be impacting billions, through loneliness, disconnection, and meaninglessness.

Are we undervaluing this suffering because it resists clean measurement?

Scale

What if the scale of meaning-loss is already planetary? If more people today are lonely than ever in human history, if fewer people feel spiritually anchored, if relationships are weakening across cultures, shouldn’t this be scale-defining?

Could a world that loses its capacity for celebration, beauty, and belonging be said to flourish, even if it avoids extinction?

Tractability

What if culture, not just cognition, deserves safeguarding?

It’s tempting to think living risk is intractable, too subjective, too messy. But EA has never shied away from hard problems. EA now funds moral circle expansion, preserving moral information, and global mental health. What if we expanded those efforts to include:

• Preserving vanishing languages and stories (the moral memory of cultures)
• Designing AI that understands not just goals, but grief, art, and longing
• Funding rituals, art, and communal practices as resilience infrastructure

Cost-Effectiveness

Can you quantify “meaning”? Maybe not directly. But neither could we initially quantify AI alignment or wild animal welfare. Could we instead proxy it  through suicide rates, loneliness, cultural loss, spiritual health, disconnection? What if aliveness per dollar became a new metric to explore?

Are There Already Signs We’re Missing Something?

Yes. And they’re growing louder:

• Social media platforms are linked to depression, anxiety, and loneliness, even as they increase “connectedness.”
• Automated systems are replacing human contact — not just in commerce, but in care.
• Digital communication is efficient, but often performative.
• And even as we optimize health and security, people are saying: something is missing.

EA has helped save and extend lives. What if the next step is to help deepen them? 

Are there already signs we’re missing something?

Yes. And they’re growing louder. 

• Social media platforms are linked to depression, anxiety, and loneliness, even as they increase “connectedness.”
• Automated systems are replacing human contact  not just in commerce, but in care.
• Digital communication is efficient, but often performative.
• And even as we optimize health and security, people are saying: something is missing.

EA has helped save and extend lives. What if the next step is to help deepen them?

Could this be a cause area or subfield  worth exploring?

This is my ask.

Let’s explore whether living risk could be a cause area or sub-domain of longtermist work adjacent to value lock in, moral circle expansion, and preserving moral information. Or perhaps it deserves to be a new direction altogether, a fusion of qualitative philosophy and rigorous modeling.

I’d love to co-write, co-model, or co-explore with anyone interested.
Let’s open a thread. Let’s start the thinking.
Let’s test if this is just poetic language or a new domain of good.

How might we define it? Where might we locate it? What indicators could we build? Who’s already touching it? Could EA be the movement that learns not just to survive forever  but to sing again?

This post is not a criticism of Effective Altruism. It’s a celebration of it and a request for its next bold move. Let’s add this question to our set:

• Not just “How can we prevent catastrophe?”
• But “What kind of world are we preventing it for?”

If this resonates or even if you disagree and see risks I’ve missed, I want to talk. I want to build this out, refine it, test it. This isn’t just a reflection. It could be the starting point for building Effective Altruism Uganda rooted in deep cultural context, lived values, and a broadened vision of impact.

Let’s make room for not just lives saved   but lives felt.