A lot of the recent criticisms of EA I’ve seen target longtermism in its most “extreme” form, and drag all of effective altruism with it.
Although I am philosophically very persuaded by longtermism (I think it is an especially important contribution from the effective altruism community and I’m actively working on longtermist causes alongside other ones) I think that it’s not the only game in town and we should be careful about times when we might be accidentally representing EA in that way. I think that if we’re not especially careful to represent the diversity within EA and too actively promote one particular set of conclusions we’ll continue to have hit pieces (like this) that start to equate EA with longtermism.
Exactly! Somewhat of a sidenote but I find it relevant: I’ve seen this thing with many political parties in Sweden that usually have a youth organisation that for various reasons often represents a more radical version of the so-called party line on various issues. Political opponents will try to hold the party responsible for what the youth branch says and does, but it’s generally understood by most (I think) that the latter is the avant-garde and should not be conflated with the general views of e.g. those voting for the party in elections. Denying there are important connections between the two would be dishonest, but so would saying they are the same be.
Although I am philosophically very persuaded by longtermism (I think it is an especially important contribution from the effective altruism community and I’m actively working on longtermist causes alongside other ones) I think that it’s not the only game in town and we should be careful about times when we might be accidentally representing EA in that way. I think that if we’re not especially careful to represent the diversity within EA and too actively promote one particular set of conclusions we’ll continue to have hit pieces (like this) that start to equate EA with longtermism.
Exactly! Somewhat of a sidenote but I find it relevant: I’ve seen this thing with many political parties in Sweden that usually have a youth organisation that for various reasons often represents a more radical version of the so-called party line on various issues. Political opponents will try to hold the party responsible for what the youth branch says and does, but it’s generally understood by most (I think) that the latter is the avant-garde and should not be conflated with the general views of e.g. those voting for the party in elections. Denying there are important connections between the two would be dishonest, but so would saying they are the same be.