I only skimmed part of this, but I would agree that EA is an ideology, and would add that ‘ideology’ is a fairly vague term. I include science and religion as examples of ideological movements, as well as current ‘popular’, ‘social justice’ and ‘environmental’ movements (e.g. extinction rebellion, anti-capitalists, yellow vests, alt-right) . Maybe the 2 best sources for this view might K Mannheim’s ‘Ideology and Utopia’, and H White’s ‘Metahistory’—though both of them are vague and out of date . (I might add Pierre Bourdieu.)
EA has a specific kind of language—based mostly on philosophy, though apparently many people are either into IT or just have ‘regular careers’ (I met a police officer who works in a very rough area at an EA event, as well as an international poverty researcher).
The mathematics I’ve seen associated with EA , though they talk about it, is minimal—the only worthwhile math I’ve seen was a paper cited by a university grad student , and the paper was from a research center with no connection to EA. Most of the math in EA papers is what I call ‘philosophical math’—similar to Godel’s ‘Ontological Proof of God’—just a philosophical paper, which shows ‘God’ can be represented by an ‘Ultrafilter’ (a mathematical term). (I think Godel didn’t think he prove God existed, only that God was already implicit in any discussions of her or it. )
EA ideology is like christianity to me—and I view there to be 2 kinds of Christians who both claim the name—one kind (Episcopalians, MLK Baptists, liberal churches) say they belive love your neighbor as yourself. The iother kind says accept jesus as savior and bible as literal word of god and the rest follows—no LGBTQ+, womyn preachers, abortions, etc.
EA has similar divisions—some EA people have environmentalist sympathies (eg carbon sequestration, saving rainforests); others worry about ‘insect and wild animal suffering’ so they favor destruction of wilderness areas where animals suffer. Some do support both habitat destruction and renewable energy development (which by any basic logical analyses makes exactly zero sense—if they want to reduce wild animal suffering, then they should be against renewable energy and in favor of Canadian tar sand and Arctic oil developement, mountain top removal and strip oal mining , etc—because it destroys more natural habitat where insects and animals suffer).
I dought all people who identify with EA will ever have a constant set of beliefs any more than Christians will (one can remember that Martin Luther created the protestants which split from Catholics, yet retained term christian.)
I only skimmed part of this, but I would agree that EA is an ideology, and would add that ‘ideology’ is a fairly vague term. I include science and religion as examples of ideological movements, as well as current ‘popular’, ‘social justice’ and ‘environmental’ movements (e.g. extinction rebellion, anti-capitalists, yellow vests, alt-right) . Maybe the 2 best sources for this view might K Mannheim’s ‘Ideology and Utopia’, and H White’s ‘Metahistory’—though both of them are vague and out of date . (I might add Pierre Bourdieu.)
EA has a specific kind of language—based mostly on philosophy, though apparently many people are either into IT or just have ‘regular careers’ (I met a police officer who works in a very rough area at an EA event, as well as an international poverty researcher).
The mathematics I’ve seen associated with EA , though they talk about it, is minimal—the only worthwhile math I’ve seen was a paper cited by a university grad student , and the paper was from a research center with no connection to EA. Most of the math in EA papers is what I call ‘philosophical math’—similar to Godel’s ‘Ontological Proof of God’—just a philosophical paper, which shows ‘God’ can be represented by an ‘Ultrafilter’ (a mathematical term). (I think Godel didn’t think he prove God existed, only that God was already implicit in any discussions of her or it. )
EA ideology is like christianity to me—and I view there to be 2 kinds of Christians who both claim the name—one kind (Episcopalians, MLK Baptists, liberal churches) say they belive love your neighbor as yourself. The iother kind says accept jesus as savior and bible as literal word of god and the rest follows—no LGBTQ+, womyn preachers, abortions, etc.
EA has similar divisions—some EA people have environmentalist sympathies (eg carbon sequestration, saving rainforests); others worry about ‘insect and wild animal suffering’ so they favor destruction of wilderness areas where animals suffer. Some do support both habitat destruction and renewable energy development (which by any basic logical analyses makes exactly zero sense—if they want to reduce wild animal suffering, then they should be against renewable energy and in favor of Canadian tar sand and Arctic oil developement, mountain top removal and strip oal mining , etc—because it destroys more natural habitat where insects and animals suffer).
I dought all people who identify with EA will ever have a constant set of beliefs any more than Christians will (one can remember that Martin Luther created the protestants which split from Catholics, yet retained term christian.)