Thanks for writing this, I thought it was quite a good summary. However, I would like to push back on two things.
Effective altruism is egalitarian. Effective altruism values all people equally
I often think of age as being one dimension that egalitarians think should not influence how important someone is. However, despite GiveWell being one of the archetypal EA organisations (along with GWWC/CEA), they do not do this. Rather, they value middle-aged years of life more highly than baby years or life or old people years of life. See for example this page here. Perhaps EA should be egalitarian, but de facto it does not seem to be.
Effective altruism is secular. It does not recommend charities that most effectively get people into Heaven …
This item seem rather different from the other items on the list. Most of the others seem like rational positions for virtually anyone to hold. However, if you were religious, this tennant seems very irrational—helping people get into heaven would be the most effective thing you could do! Putting this here seems akin to saying that AMF is an EA value; rather, these are conclusions, not premises.
Additionally, there is some evidence that promoting religion might be beneficial even on strictly material grounds. Have you seen the recent pre-registered RCT on protestant evangelism?
To test the causal impact of religiosity, we conducted a randomized evaluation of an evangelical Protestant Christian values and theology education program that consisted of 15 weekly half-hour sessions. We analyze outcomes for 6,276 ultra-poor Filipino households six months after the program ended. We find significant increases in religiosity and income, no significant changes in total labor supply, assets, consumption, food security, or life satisfaction, and a significant decrease in perceived relative economic status. Exploratory analysis suggests the program may have improved hygienic practices and increased household discord, and that the income treatment effect may operate through increasing grit.
I don’t have a strong view on whether or not this is actually a good thing to do, let alone the best thing. RCTs provide high quality causal evidence, but even then most interventions do not work very well, and I’m not an expert on the impact of evangelism. But it seems strange to assume from very beginning that it is not something EAs would ever be interested in.
Thanks for writing this, I thought it was quite a good summary. However, I would like to push back on two things.
I often think of age as being one dimension that egalitarians think should not influence how important someone is. However, despite GiveWell being one of the archetypal EA organisations (along with GWWC/CEA), they do not do this. Rather, they value middle-aged years of life more highly than baby years or life or old people years of life. See for example this page here. Perhaps EA should be egalitarian, but de facto it does not seem to be.
This item seem rather different from the other items on the list. Most of the others seem like rational positions for virtually anyone to hold. However, if you were religious, this tennant seems very irrational—helping people get into heaven would be the most effective thing you could do! Putting this here seems akin to saying that AMF is an EA value; rather, these are conclusions, not premises.
Additionally, there is some evidence that promoting religion might be beneficial even on strictly material grounds. Have you seen the recent pre-registered RCT on protestant evangelism?
https://www.nber.org/papers/w24278.pdf
I don’t have a strong view on whether or not this is actually a good thing to do, let alone the best thing. RCTs provide high quality causal evidence, but even then most interventions do not work very well, and I’m not an expert on the impact of evangelism. But it seems strange to assume from very beginning that it is not something EAs would ever be interested in.