I was only introduced to Ethical Altruism a few weeks ago, and have already encountered a number of words and phrases that either:
- I know I have heard before, but don’t really understand how to use, or
- I have no idea what it means/refers to.
Here is a list of words and their definitions, so that next time I see these, I will be better equipped to understand what I am reading.
(Most of these words are not only relevant/existent in EA literature, that’s just where I am finding them.)
axiom - noun. an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth; an idea or statement put forth and accepted as true by many people
epistemic - adj. of or relating to knowledge or knowing, or the conditions for acquiring it
Fermi estimate - a quick estimate calculation based on breaking a big problem into smaller, more easily solvable problems, and then scaling up. Often referred to as a “back-of-the-envelope calculation”
heuristic - adj. encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error; noun. a method or set of rules for solving problems other than by algorithm
Streetlight Effect - the phenomenon where people tend to look only where it is easy to look