I ostensibly agree but who would decide such a stance? Our community has no voting or political system. I would be relatively happy for us to go with welfarism/beneficentrism, but I feel uncomfortable with the idea of a bunch of higher ups in the community getting together and just outright deciding this.
This thread does not fit my view, to be honest: to talk about “the community” as a single body with an “official” stance, to talk about “EA being utilitarian”...
EA is, at least for me, a set of ideas much more than an identity. Certainly, these ideas influence my life a lot, have caused me to change jobs, etc.; yet I would still describe EA as a diverse group of people with many stances, backgrounds, religions, ethical paradigms, united by thinking about the best ways for doing good.
In my life, I’ve always been interested in doing good. I think most humans are. At some point, I’ve found out that there are people who have thought deeply about this, and found really effective ways to do good. This was, and still is, very welcome to me, even if some conclusions are hard to digest. I see EA ideas as ways to get better at doing what I always wanted, and this seems like a good way to avoid disillusionment.
(Charles_Guthmann, sorry for having taken your thread into a tangent. This post and many of the comments hinges somewhat on “EA as part of people’s identity” and “EA as a single body with an official stance”, and your thread was where this became most apparent to me.)
I ostensibly agree but who would decide such a stance? Our community has no voting or political system. I would be relatively happy for us to go with welfarism/beneficentrism, but I feel uncomfortable with the idea of a bunch of higher ups in the community getting together and just outright deciding this.
This thread does not fit my view, to be honest: to talk about “the community” as a single body with an “official” stance, to talk about “EA being utilitarian”...
EA is, at least for me, a set of ideas much more than an identity. Certainly, these ideas influence my life a lot, have caused me to change jobs, etc.; yet I would still describe EA as a diverse group of people with many stances, backgrounds, religions, ethical paradigms, united by thinking about the best ways for doing good.
In my life, I’ve always been interested in doing good. I think most humans are. At some point, I’ve found out that there are people who have thought deeply about this, and found really effective ways to do good. This was, and still is, very welcome to me, even if some conclusions are hard to digest. I see EA ideas as ways to get better at doing what I always wanted, and this seems like a good way to avoid disillusionment.
(Charles_Guthmann, sorry for having taken your thread into a tangent. This post and many of the comments hinges somewhat on “EA as part of people’s identity” and “EA as a single body with an official stance”, and your thread was where this became most apparent to me.)