Although I understand the nationalism example isnât meant to be analogous, but my impression is this structural objection only really applies when our situation is analogous.
If historically EA paid a lot of attention to nationalism (or trans-humanism, the scepticism community, or whatever else) but had by-and-large collectively âmoved onâ from these, contemporary introductions to the field shouldnât feel obliged to cover them extensively, nor treat it the relative merits of what they focus on now versus then as an open question.
Yet, however you slice it, EA as it stands now hasnât by-and-large âmoved onâ to be âbasically longtermismâ, where its interest in (e.g) global health is clearly atavistic. Iâd be willing to go to bat for substantial slants to longtermism, as (I aver) its over-representation amongst the more highly engaged and the disproportionate migration of folks to longtermism from other areas warrants claims that epistocratic weighting of consensus would favour longtermism over anything else. But even this has limits which âgreatly favouring longtermism over everything elseâ exceeds.
How you choose to frame an introduction is up for grabs, and I donât think âthe big threeâ is the only appropriate game in town. Yet if your alternative way of framing an introduction to X ends up strongly favouring one aspect (further, the one you are sympathetic to) disproportionate to any reasonable account of its prominence within X, something has gone wrong.
Although I understand the nationalism example isnât meant to be analogous, but my impression is this structural objection only really applies when our situation is analogous.
If historically EA paid a lot of attention to nationalism (or trans-humanism, the scepticism community, or whatever else) but had by-and-large collectively âmoved onâ from these, contemporary introductions to the field shouldnât feel obliged to cover them extensively, nor treat it the relative merits of what they focus on now versus then as an open question.
Yet, however you slice it, EA as it stands now hasnât by-and-large âmoved onâ to be âbasically longtermismâ, where its interest in (e.g) global health is clearly atavistic. Iâd be willing to go to bat for substantial slants to longtermism, as (I aver) its over-representation amongst the more highly engaged and the disproportionate migration of folks to longtermism from other areas warrants claims that epistocratic weighting of consensus would favour longtermism over anything else. But even this has limits which âgreatly favouring longtermism over everything elseâ exceeds.
How you choose to frame an introduction is up for grabs, and I donât think âthe big threeâ is the only appropriate game in town. Yet if your alternative way of framing an introduction to X ends up strongly favouring one aspect (further, the one you are sympathetic to) disproportionate to any reasonable account of its prominence within X, something has gone wrong.