Nothing you’ve written here sounds like anything I’ve heard anyone say in the context of a serious EA discussion. Are there any examples you could link to of people complaining about causes being “too mainstream” or using religious language to discuss X-risk prevention?
The arguments you seem to be referring to with these points (that it’s hard to make marginal impact in crowded areas, and that it’s good to work toward futures where more people are alive and flourishing) rely on a lot of careful economic and moral reasoning about the real world, and I think this comment doesn’t really acknowledge the work that goes into cause prioritization.
But if you see a lot of these weaker (hipster/religious) arguments outside of mainstream discussion (e.g. maybe lots of EA Facebook groups are full of posts like this), I’d be interested to see examples.
Nothing you’ve written here sounds like anything I’ve heard anyone say in the context of a serious EA discussion. Are there any examples you could link to of people complaining about causes being “too mainstream” or using religious language to discuss X-risk prevention?
The arguments you seem to be referring to with these points (that it’s hard to make marginal impact in crowded areas, and that it’s good to work toward futures where more people are alive and flourishing) rely on a lot of careful economic and moral reasoning about the real world, and I think this comment doesn’t really acknowledge the work that goes into cause prioritization.
But if you see a lot of these weaker (hipster/religious) arguments outside of mainstream discussion (e.g. maybe lots of EA Facebook groups are full of posts like this), I’d be interested to see examples.