welcome to the nonlinear library, where we use text-to-speech software to convert the best writing from the rationalist and ea communities into audio.

this is: Announcing my retirement, published by Aaron Gertler on the effective altruism forum.

A few sharp-eyed readers noticed my imminent departure from CEA in our last quarterly report. Gold stars all around!

My last day as our content specialist — and thus, my last day helping to run the Forum — is December 10th. The other moderators will continue to handle the basics, and we’re in the process of hiring my replacement. (Let me know if anyone comes to mind!)

Managing this place was fun. It wasn’t always fun, but — on the whole, a good time.

I’ve enjoyed giving feedback to a few hundred people, organizing some interesting AMAs, running a writing contest, building up the Digest, hosting workshops for EA groups around the world, and deleting a truly staggering number of comments advertising escort services (I’ll spare you the link).

More broadly, I’ve felt a continual sense of admiration for everyone who cares about the Forum and tries to make it better — by reading, voting, posting, crossposting, commenting, tagging, Wiki-editing, bug-reporting, and/or moderating. Collectively, you’ve put in tens of thousands of hours of work to develop our strange, complicated, unique website, with scant compensation besides karma.

(Now that I’m leaving, it’s time to be honest — despite the rumors, our karma isn’t the kind that gets you a better afterlife.)

Thank you for everything you’ve done to make this job what it was.

What’s next?

In January, I’ll join Open Philanthropy as their communications officer, working to help their researchers publish more of their work.

I’ll also be joining Effective Giving Quest as their first partnered streamer. Wish me luck: moderating this place sometimes felt like herding cats, but it’s nothing compared to Twitch chat.

My Forum comments will be less frequent, but probably spicier.

thanks for listening. to help us out with the nonlinear library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.