I don’t think there’s an “endgame” for EA—suffering will always be around, so there’s never really a point where we can say, “We’ve done enough". The ongoing challenge gives me purpose. Without suffering, there’s no meaning—like how there’s no hero without a villain.

But rather than seeing that as a never-ending grind, maybe it’s more like being on a path with ourselves, our actions, and the people we meet. If you can enjoy the roses along the way, drink a fine wine with your loved ones, and rest on a quaint bench to take a breather, isn’t it kind of nice to keep walking?

One example I can think of with regards to people "graduating" from philosophies is the idea that people can graduate out of arguably "adolescent" political philosophies like libertarianism and socialism. Often this looks like people realizing society is messy and that simple political philosophies don't do a good job of capturing and addressing this.

However, I think EA as a philosophy is more robust than the above: There are opportunities to address the immense suffering in the world and to address existential risk, some of these opportunities are much more impactful than others, and it's worth looking for and then executing on these opportunities. I expect this to be true for a very long time.

In general I think effective giving is the best opportunity for most people. We often get fixated on the status of directly working on urgent problems, which I think is a huge mistake. Effective giving is a way to have a profound impact, and I don't like to think of it as something just "for mere mortals" -- I think there's something really amazing about people giving a portion of their income every year to save lives and health, and I think doing so makes you as much an EA as somebody whose job itself is impactful.

I don't think that EA should be graduated from. I think that it's a matter of continuing to develop in both the "effective" and "altruistic" components.

With "Effective", I'd say we're talking about an epistemological process. There, you're trying to learn the relevant knowledge about the world and yourself such that the resources within your control that you are deciding to deploy for altruistic purposes are deployed such that they can do the most good.

With "Altruism", that would be digging deep within yourself so that you can deploy more of those resources. The ideal, in my mind, would be having no more partiality to your own interests than those of other conscious beings across space, species, and/or time.

So, I don't see an endpoint, but rather a constant striving for knowledge, wisdom, and will.