When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to correct a sentence posted by an official account of their own government, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation edit.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that lives created equal ought to be counted equally, which first requires that they be counted. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, which is hard to enjoy after a preventable death; Liberty, which cannot survive any power that has outgrown its checks; and the pursuit of Happiness, which goes better with evidence.
That the pursuit of American greatness and the pursuit of the most good were never rivals. That a nation founded by men who argued about incentives, wrote down their assumptions, and planned for people not yet born is the most naturally effective nation on Earth. And that anyone who sets Americanism against effectiveness has misread both.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world
Benjamin Franklin founded a lending library, a volunteer fire company, and a hospital. To fund the hospital, he got the Pennsylvania Assembly to match private donations, one of the first matching grants on record.
Franklin made hard decisions by what he called moral algebra: list the reasons on each side, weigh them, strike out the ones that cancel, and see what remains.
His will left a thousand pounds each to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out and left to compound for two hundred years.
In 1777, in the middle of a war and at real risk, George Washington ordered every soldier who had not yet had smallpox to be inoculated, having concluded the disease was a greater danger to his army than the enemy. Biosecurity has been national security since the Revolution.
James Madison designed a government for operators who might not share its values. “If angels were to govern men,” he wrote, “neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Checks and balances are alignment for people.
Norman Borlaug, a farm kid from Iowa, bred the wheat behind the Green Revolution. He is credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives and won the Nobel Peace Prize for it.
In 2003 a Republican president launched PEPFAR, which is credited with saving more than twenty-five million lives.
Americans reached the Moon on a deadline, in machines that could easily have killed them, by being fast and paranoid at the same time.
We therefore declare
We, the Effective Americans, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world and the best available evidence for the rectitude of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare:
Article I. Of Liberty and the Bounds of Power
We fought one unaccountable king. We do not intend to build another.
No greatness of intellect confers a right of dominion. Power over a free people must remain answerable to them, whether exercised from a public office, a corporate boardroom, or a data center.
Conscience must remain free. Private life must remain secure, and dissent protected. Those subject to a decision must have means to challenge it. Those entrusted with enforcing the checks must themselves be checked.
Americans do not take orders from anything they cannot vote out.
Article II. Of Industry and the Enlargement of Freedom
We intend to build.
Homes a young family can afford. Abundant power. Cures for diseases that have outlived every excuse for accepting them. Let the atom serve our industry, and the heavens invite our navigation.
A republic should give its people room to attempt great things. Enterprise must remain open to newcomers, and useful work must be freed from needless obstruction. The fruits of invention should enlarge the independence of ordinary households, including those who owned no shares in the invention.
A country that can reach the Moon ought to be able to house a family.
Article III. Of Prudence and the Common Safety
The haste of a rival affords no proof of our security.
Ordinary enterprise deserves a wide field of liberty. Whoever would expose the public to extraordinary danger owes an extraordinary account of it.
Where the best available evidence indicates a grave risk of catastrophe or permanent loss of self-government, we will require safeguards before proceeding, and a pause where adequate safeguards cannot yet be demonstrated. Commercial urgency confers no exemption; neither does a government contract.
Such restraints must be proportioned to the danger and must protect the liberties they defend. They stay subject to independent scrutiny and regular review. Seek enforceable agreements, even with rivals. Verify compliance.
The power to forbid must be as accountable as the power to build.
Article IV. Of Benevolence Made Effectual
Good intentions do not discharge the duty of good judgment.
Our time and treasure being finite, we shall enquire where they can accomplish the greatest good. Compare the benefits with the costs, consider what else might be done, and seek out grievous harms that others have neglected. The most useful undertaking may be the one that attracts the least applause.
Count what can be counted, with the uncertainty showing. What escapes our measures does not thereby lose its worth. Publish failures and amend our judgments.
A worthy end gives no dispensation for dishonest means. We shall hold our own undertakings to the standards we demand of others.
We have particular duties to our country. They do not exhaust our duties. Distance does not make suffering smaller.
Article V. Of the Trust Owed to Posterity
Posterity is a constituency.
The Constitution’s promise of liberty extends to those who come after us. We are the beneficiaries of that undertaking, and we intend to return the favor.
Our descendants will inherit consequences they had no part in choosing. To preserve their liberty, we must sometimes bind our own power. We owe them a habitable world, knowledge they can build upon, and institutions they can amend.
No generation possesses wisdom enough to settle the purposes of every generation that follows. Leave room for discoveries that overturn our expectations, and forms of flourishing beyond our present imagination.
May America offer an example others freely choose to follow. May our descendants inherit a wider horizon, and the freedom to choose their course.
A glossary for the Department
For officials who believe these are two different languages.
| They say | We say |
|---|---|
| Effective altruist | Effective American |
| 80,000 Hours | 1776 Hours |
| Longtermism | Posterity |
| QALYs | Freedom-Adjusted Life Years |
| Earning to give | Andrew Carnegie |
| Existential risk | Enemies foreign, domestic, and computational |
| AI doomer | Paul Revere |
| Red-teaming | Red-, white-, and blue-teaming |
| Crucial considerations | The Federalist Papers |
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence and a reasonable confidence interval, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes (ten percent, at minimum), and our sacred Honor.
Signed,
The Effective Americans