Here’s a slightly different angle from which to approach Ben’s challenge. Instead of focusing on possible vindicating explanations of why the EA movement is so recent, we may consider other recent intellectual developments which we find plausible. Personally, I find myself endorsing many ideas that I would have antecedently expected to have been discovered much earlier, conditional on their being true. Each of these ideas, if considered individually, might be vulnerable to a critique of the sort Ben raises against EA. When these ideas are considered collectively, however, they seem to provide enough reason to question the “efficient market in ideas hypothesis” that Ben’s argument assumes.
Here’s a slightly different angle from which to approach Ben’s challenge. Instead of focusing on possible vindicating explanations of why the EA movement is so recent, we may consider other recent intellectual developments which we find plausible. Personally, I find myself endorsing many ideas that I would have antecedently expected to have been discovered much earlier, conditional on their being true. Each of these ideas, if considered individually, might be vulnerable to a critique of the sort Ben raises against EA. When these ideas are considered collectively, however, they seem to provide enough reason to question the “efficient market in ideas hypothesis” that Ben’s argument assumes.
Or reason to think that maybe we just like exciting new ideas, regardless of their truth.