A lot of this feels like a conflict about what our mental image of a moral person should look like. Should grey tribe dudes with asburgers who treat life like a math problem be allowed to think of themselves as good people just because they save lives? A lot of people seem to think not!
Saying Peter Singer isn't a real effective altruist is like saying Marx wasn't a real communist, truly a mind-bogglingly bizarre claim for someone to make in a serious debate.
Unless an anti-EAer mentions you directly or says somerthing which actually challenges beneficialism (is that how you spell it?)... seems like you could suffice with something like this as a generic response to everyone.
Maybe write more articles (with fewer assertions and more argument) about why the Nietzsche people are wrong. :P
There's a very limited number of people who can be recruited to EA. The rest has to be done by government at various levels and what people are inspired to do. Don't let the idea of the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't turn down United Way because it hasn't received an EA imprimatur. Nor should one go about hardening their heart to random impulses toward altruism which come from a less analytical part of a person's makeup. That generalized non analytic cultural substrate is the first requirement that even few people (which is all it will ever be) do EA.
Ok but how do you say that the person you're literally arguing with about whether effective altruism is good, who is on the side of effective altruism and says he is an effective altruist, isn't an effective altruist.
"Effective altruist leaders have, for years, been warning about the dangers of violating commonsense morality and engaging in malevolent diabolical plans for the greater good." Isn't this exactly what an Effective altruist who wants to effectively influence the world in a way that violated commonsense morality would say? That on issues such as the meat eater problem it's hard not to look at various positions as engaging in some sort of 4d chess.
A lot of this feels like a conflict about what our mental image of a moral person should look like. Should grey tribe dudes with asburgers who treat life like a math problem be allowed to think of themselves as good people just because they save lives? A lot of people seem to think not!
Saying Peter Singer isn't a real effective altruist is like saying Marx wasn't a real communist, truly a mind-bogglingly bizarre claim for someone to make in a serious debate.
In fairness didn't Marx himself say he wasn't a Marxist?
Peter Singer, the prototypical effective altruist, wasn’t really an ****effective altruism****
Unless an anti-EAer mentions you directly or says somerthing which actually challenges beneficialism (is that how you spell it?)... seems like you could suffice with something like this as a generic response to everyone.
Maybe write more articles (with fewer assertions and more argument) about why the Nietzsche people are wrong. :P
There's a very limited number of people who can be recruited to EA. The rest has to be done by government at various levels and what people are inspired to do. Don't let the idea of the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't turn down United Way because it hasn't received an EA imprimatur. Nor should one go about hardening their heart to random impulses toward altruism which come from a less analytical part of a person's makeup. That generalized non analytic cultural substrate is the first requirement that even few people (which is all it will ever be) do EA.
Ok but how do you say that the person you're literally arguing with about whether effective altruism is good, who is on the side of effective altruism and says he is an effective altruist, isn't an effective altruist.
"Effective altruist leaders have, for years, been warning about the dangers of violating commonsense morality and engaging in malevolent diabolical plans for the greater good." Isn't this exactly what an Effective altruist who wants to effectively influence the world in a way that violated commonsense morality would say? That on issues such as the meat eater problem it's hard not to look at various positions as engaging in some sort of 4d chess.