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Notes -
On reflection I think EA as a tribal signifier has come to mean a whole bunch of different things to different people, from "we should value the lives of future people more than our own" to "maybe we should think for two seconds about cost efficiency" to "defrauding people can be good, actually" to "just donate to whoever Givewell says." This is unhelpful.
Agreed. I am not a strict utilitarian but still support EA more on the “think for two seconds on cost efficiency” side, and the idea that the first world has a moral obligation to help lift the rest of the world out of poverty.
I don’t buy into longtermism or AI doom scenarios at all though, and find them rather annoying. People forget that most of the work done in EA and most of the money spent is on global development. Unfortunately controversy drives headlines so most don’t see that.
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