“In the space of cause neutrality, the charge made is that the EAs don’t see people. As Rubenstein puts it, she notes that ‘the EA community systematically excludes the very people who are its central objects of concern’ (2015, p.521). And this is technically true; [...] Cause neutrality, by its nature, hollows out this immediate intimacy and replaces it with the type of rationalistic or algorithmic thinking that troubles so many people.
″...Much of the rejection of digital relationships as ‘inauthentic’, of needing co-presence and immediate connection, I think at the heart of many of the claims of the inhumanity of the EAs.
″...Keane sums this up: ‘As people become aware of the chains of causality that link them to very distant others, they may come to feel responsible for things that happen at a distance’ (p.454). These ‘very distant others’ are those the EAs care about deeply. In all my interactions with the Effective Altruists, one could never accuse them of not caring. It may be better to say they experience inter-subjective empathy after they’ve managed to work out what represents the most impactful thing for them to do.”
“In the space of cause neutrality, the charge made is that the EAs don’t see people. As Rubenstein puts it, she notes that ‘the EA community systematically excludes the very people who are its central objects of concern’ (2015, p.521). And this is technically true; [...] Cause neutrality, by its nature, hollows out this immediate intimacy and replaces it with the type of rationalistic or algorithmic thinking that troubles so many people.
″...Much of the rejection of digital relationships as ‘inauthentic’, of needing co-presence and immediate connection, I think at the heart of many of the claims of the inhumanity of the EAs.
″...Keane sums this up: ‘As people become aware of the chains of causality that link them to very distant others, they may come to feel responsible for things that happen at a distance’ (p.454). These ‘very distant others’ are those the EAs care about deeply. In all my interactions with the Effective Altruists, one could never accuse them of not caring. It may be better to say they experience inter-subjective empathy after they’ve managed to work out what represents the most impactful thing for them to do.”