If the intellectual project is too taxing in an otherwise busy life (work, family, other interests etc), I’m not sure there’s a way to meaningfully re-engage the old-hand EAs.
This seems plausible to me. EA should be a community organized around doing the intellectual project, not a random social club.
(On the other hand, I am doing an EA activity, namely giving away money effectively. But there’s not much to talk about with that!)
So I think a very relevant question is just: is it actually useful or desirable to “retain” people like me? It depends on what we want the EA community to look like.
The content of your comment is not just “I disagree with the post”. It’s “I disagree with the post plus some implicature that the author is rationalizing an immoral decision”. So it’s quite reasonable for people to disagree with both the post and you.