I think I more or less agree with you. However, I think my point wasn’t about longtermism, but rather just the difference between the project that DGB was engaging in and the later work by MacAskill on cause prioritization. Like, one was saying, “Hey! evidence can be really helpful in doing good, and we should care about how effective the charities are that we donate to,” and the other work was a really cerebral, unintuitive piece about what we should care about, and contribute to, because of expected value reasons. And just that these are two very different projects, and it’s not obvious to me which one EA is at the moment. To use a cliche, EA has an identity crisis, maybe, and the classic EA pitch of Peter Singer and DGB and AMF is a very distinct pitch from the global prioritization one. And whichever EA decides on, it should acknowledge that these are different, regardless of which one is more or less impactful.
I think I more or less agree with you. However, I think my point wasn’t about longtermism, but rather just the difference between the project that DGB was engaging in and the later work by MacAskill on cause prioritization. Like, one was saying, “Hey! evidence can be really helpful in doing good, and we should care about how effective the charities are that we donate to,” and the other work was a really cerebral, unintuitive piece about what we should care about, and contribute to, because of expected value reasons. And just that these are two very different projects, and it’s not obvious to me which one EA is at the moment. To use a cliche, EA has an identity crisis, maybe, and the classic EA pitch of Peter Singer and DGB and AMF is a very distinct pitch from the global prioritization one. And whichever EA decides on, it should acknowledge that these are different, regardless of which one is more or less impactful.