I agree 100% that the EA community’s efforts in areas like malaria and direct cash transfers are falling quite firmly within the ‘elimination of concrete evils’ camp. IIRC you differentiate between the philosophical foundations and actual practice of effective altruism in your essay. So even if most EA work currently is part of the aforementioned camp, the philosophical foundations might not actually imply this.
Johannes_Schwenke
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Hi, I enjoyed your article. Parts of this remind me of Popper’s “Utopia and Violence” in Conjectures and Refutations. Given that (strong) longtermist philosophy leads one to consider the value of an action in light of how much it could help bring about a particular utopia (often a techno-utopia), you might find inspiration to expand your critique in Popper’s essay. (I don’t want to endorse any specific view here, I just thought this might help you build a better argument).
Some quotes: