What EAs think is that people should make decisions guided by a rigorous empirical evaluation based on consequentialist criteria.
Ummm, no. Not all EAs are consequentialists (although a large fraction of them are), and most EAs these days understand that ārigorous empirical evaluationā isnāt the only way to reason about interventions.
It just gets worse from there:
In other words, effective altruists donāt think you should make charitable contributions to your church (again, relative to the mass public this is the most controversial part!) or to support the arts or to solve problems in your community. They think most of the stuff that people donate to (which, again, is largely religiously motivated) do is frivolous. But beyond that, they would dismiss the bulk of the kind of problems that concern most people as literal āfirst world problemsā that blatantly fail the cost-benefit test compared to Vitamin A supplementation in Africa.
No! Weāre not against supporting programs other than the global health stuff. Itās just that you gotta buy your fuzzies separate from your utils. More fundamentally, EAs disagree on whether EA is mandatory or supererogatory (merely good). If EA is supererogatory, then supporting your local museum isnāt wrong, it just doesnāt count towards your effective giving budget.
Matt Yglesias gets EA wrong :(
Ummm, no. Not all EAs are consequentialists (although a large fraction of them are), and most EAs these days understand that ārigorous empirical evaluationā isnāt the only way to reason about interventions.
It just gets worse from there:
No! Weāre not against supporting programs other than the global health stuff. Itās just that you gotta buy your fuzzies separate from your utils. More fundamentally, EAs disagree on whether EA is mandatory or supererogatory (merely good). If EA is supererogatory, then supporting your local museum isnāt wrong, it just doesnāt count towards your effective giving budget.