I wrote this as a reply to the author, as I thought there were a couple of misunderstandings in the piece , sharing here as it might be useful for others (lightly edited). I was at Breakthrough , where the author works, in 2012:
” * The point on prioritizing animals v biodiversity/valuing nature is indeed a key difference between ecomodernists and many effective altruists. * The other distinctions seem less fitting.
* (1) Will’s What We Owe The Future is just one particular perspective within effective altruism, there are many effective altruists that are skeptical of the ability to shape the long-term future, see e.g. Kelsey Piper here
* (2) Effective altruists do not have a commitment to crypto as an institutional form of social organization—so the move from “SBF was a crypto guy and an EA” to “EA is anti-institutionalist” seems wrong. SBF was excited about crypto because he wanted to get really rich fast, not because he believes in decentralized anti-institutionalism in the way that many crypto ideologues do.
* (3) Insofar as effective altruists work on climate, it is all about fixing institutions—the primacy of policy and improving policy through funding advocacy charities (see e.g. here, here).
* (4) A lot of other EA work is institutionalist also, such as work to ensure governments take risks from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence more seriously.”
I wrote this as a reply to the author, as I thought there were a couple of misunderstandings in the piece , sharing here as it might be useful for others (lightly edited). I was at Breakthrough , where the author works, in 2012:
”
* The point on prioritizing animals v biodiversity/valuing nature is indeed a key difference between ecomodernists and many effective altruists.
* The other distinctions seem less fitting.
* (1) Will’s What We Owe The Future is just one particular perspective within effective altruism, there are many effective altruists that are skeptical of the ability to shape the long-term future, see e.g. Kelsey Piper here
* (2) Effective altruists do not have a commitment to crypto as an institutional form of social organization—so the move from “SBF was a crypto guy and an EA” to “EA is anti-institutionalist” seems wrong. SBF was excited about crypto because he wanted to get really rich fast, not because he believes in decentralized anti-institutionalism in the way that many crypto ideologues do.
* (3) Insofar as effective altruists work on climate, it is all about fixing institutions—the primacy of policy and improving policy through funding advocacy charities (see e.g. here, here).
* (4) A lot of other EA work is institutionalist also, such as work to ensure governments take risks from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence more seriously.”