Hi—these are really, really great points[1], I think I mostly tried to sidestep these issues in my piece, mostly because I don’t know where I stand.
However, I will attempt to poke at the points you pose.
I’d note that for Marx and Engels, communism was not merely a “nontrivial probability,” but a historical inevitability. “But these ends really do justify the means” doesn’t sound very reassuring.
I agree with this: I misread the sentiments of the comments, and responded inaccurately. I will likely edit this later in the post (and maybe even write a future post about it). For the time being, I will not defend why EA is philosophically sound against these problems, but rather why it has some practically safeguards against it.
How do we reassure people that EA’s not going to start sponsoring rain forest paving projects in the name of putting an end to wild animal suffering?
I see where this concern comes from: namely, EA has a lot of money & power & dedicated manpower backing its specific interests. However I think we could reassure people with a few points that are true and will not ruin the community’s epistemic status:
Overrepresented != Majority: I wouldn’t say violent thought patterns and negative utilitarianism is a dominant ideology in the community.
Organizationally: Worldview diversity is a virtue of the EA community in contrast to many other similar orgs; decisions seem to be distributed across many individuals and organizations; finally, EAs are non-conflict-averse. These features avoid bad decision-making.
Specifically, worldview diversity is a ward against aggressively optimizing towards niche goals, which the ‘paving the rainforest’ problem is an example of.
Practically: As far as I know, the movement doesn’t seem to be explicitly pursuing these approaches at the moment (though I see why this wouldn’t be very reassuring).
Either way, thanks for your comment -you’ve given me a lot to think about!
- ^
Here’s another interesting criticism piece (https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo) that carries some similar anxieties, though I do feel it does misrepresent both EA and longtermism in its argumentation.
Fixed! Thank you for pointing this out!