I agree that increased interest in longtermism hasn’t caused EA as a whole to decrease funding to other causes in practice. But I don’t think that this is in itself good. As the article acknowledges, prioritising between causes is an essential part of doing EA.
So if, all things considered, we thought that dropping all work helping present generations to exclusively prioritise future generations would lead to better outcomes, I think we should be willing to do that.
I particularly disagree with this quote from the article:
But if the shift to longtermism meant that effective altruists would stop helping the people of the present, and would instead put all their money and energy into projects meant to help the distant future, it would be doing an obvious and immediate harm.
Someone could equally well argue that prioritising bednets or animal advocacy over helping local homeless people would be bad because it is an obvious and immediate harm, but I think that they would be making an important mistake.
Of course, there may be instrumental reasons to keep prioritising global health and wellbeing projects. For example, you might think that:
The direct impact of these projects can’t be beaten. That is, longtermist causes simply aren’t important enough to deserve all our resources.
The experience from these projects are the best ways of helping us to learn how to actually get things done in the world.
Having a track record of doing good things will get the movement more people, money, trust and influence than other things.
Having a broad EA movement is valuable, perhaps because it makes it easier for us to spot the best opportunities and change course.
I would have preferred for the article to argue more directly for some of these as the actual reason that it’s good EA has not deprioritised global health and development.
I agree that increased interest in longtermism hasn’t caused EA as a whole to decrease funding to other causes in practice. But I don’t think that this is in itself good. As the article acknowledges, prioritising between causes is an essential part of doing EA.
So if, all things considered, we thought that dropping all work helping present generations to exclusively prioritise future generations would lead to better outcomes, I think we should be willing to do that.
I particularly disagree with this quote from the article:
Someone could equally well argue that prioritising bednets or animal advocacy over helping local homeless people would be bad because it is an obvious and immediate harm, but I think that they would be making an important mistake.
Of course, there may be instrumental reasons to keep prioritising global health and wellbeing projects. For example, you might think that:
The direct impact of these projects can’t be beaten. That is, longtermist causes simply aren’t important enough to deserve all our resources.
The experience from these projects are the best ways of helping us to learn how to actually get things done in the world.
Having a track record of doing good things will get the movement more people, money, trust and influence than other things.
Having a broad EA movement is valuable, perhaps because it makes it easier for us to spot the best opportunities and change course.
I would have preferred for the article to argue more directly for some of these as the actual reason that it’s good EA has not deprioritised global health and development.
Ah jtm has written a comment mentioning some similar points before I refreshed the page!