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People are social, people interact, helping a person live might increase the happiness of those around them or end up causing the suffering of those around them, they will probably do both simultaneously in varying amounts. The problem is you are trying to apply a value to an unknown quantity. Sometimes it feels progressives and by extension EA are so universalist in their beliefs that they can't even imagine a person having values that are negative, all people are inherently good but they are influenced by evil outside forces. Trump voters are mislead by Trump, religious people are misled by religion etc. People are capable of everything within the human experience from great altruism to great malice. Just saving a life without taking into account what you are saving is ignoring the human, it's ignoring what makes people human i.e. the content of their character, beliefs and culture. In a way I think it's even rejecting your own humanity as participating in the war of culture, having groups you favor over others, is part of being human. EAs come off as trying to stand apart from all that, like zoo keepers looking after the health of foolish animals.
Are you suggesting that empathy or humanity requires assessing whether the recipient is…worthy? Part of those groups you favor? Because that doesn’t square with any reasonable definition of empathy. Not Christian charity, not secular humanism, whatever.
Another way to put it. Let’s say your neighbor falls ill and you have the money to save him. He’s someone you know well, so you have a good sense of his beliefs and his relationships, even if they don’t always agree with yours. Is it more or less altruistic to save his life?
It requires assessing something. It's up to you whether or not you support people you find worthy or not, but to empathize there has to be something there to empathize with, otherwise you are just creating something fictional.
Saving the neighbor is traditional altruism. You know them you've interacted with them so you can empathize with them.
Saving x from y shouldn't be altruism, you don't know anything about them, you can't empathize with them without projecting, and not just some minimally necessary projection, you're basically inventing them whole cloth.
As to whether it's more or less altruistic, it seems it would be more altruistic to save the neighbor who shared none of your values than it would be to save a neighbor that shared your values and therefore helped to further you / your groups interests. This seems nonsensical to me though and basically just pointless virtue signalling.
edit: Another poster argued basically exactly this that the definition i'm using reduces to virtue maximizing and that actual EA would donate to people that shared their cause (the neighbor they liked) because they are about maximizing positive outcomes. I do feel like it stretches the definition of altruism though. Say some extreme narcissist that took an iq test as a kid and got into mensa or something felt that they were likely to be more capable than anyone else and therefore had the potential to benefit the world more than anyone else. Would they create an organization that aimed to funnel all resources to themselves and call it effective altruism? Maybe EA people believe this? Seems like the economy and wealth agrees with this. Are there EA groups funneling all their resources into ai to create god? Idk, maybe!
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