Thanks for the clarification.
The intent may be non-normative, but the language used seems to carry a lot of (very strong) implicit normative claims: "maximize good", "effective", etc.
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In particular, if it were intended purely non-normatively, then it would be fine to rename this as "Ineffective Altruism", for instance. And yet I think the implied content would be quite different.
(I may just have missed the point, perhaps quite badly, here.)
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I realize that I'm being quite unclear here.
I understand: it's intended to be non-prescriptive about _what_ is good.
But the use of "the good" or the notion of "maximizing" already seems to me a strong normative claim, even if you specify nothing about what is "the good".
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If you haven't yet, I recommend reading section II of Will's doc, which explains at length what he means by "non-normative." FWIW I resonate with its description: I think helping others (by their own lights) as much as possible is a cool project that I try to contribute to, but…
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…I'm not a moral realist, so if somebody says "why do EA stuff" I can make some arguments and try to make it sound appealing but if it just doesn't interest somebody then I'm just like "oh well, I think it's cool, but I guess it's not for you."
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I will read it, eventually. Currently ploughing through EA canon and near-canon, and (to the extent I can find it) anti-canon.
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This is perhaps a good question for the three of you: I have a large (virtual) stack of canon & near-canon I'm working through: what's most stimulating as anti-canon?
Not in the sense of arguing directly against EA, but in the sense of being in strong tension with (parts of) it?
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Things that seem plausibly anti-canon to me: parts of "Seeing Like a State", Feyerabend, Lakatos, David Deutsch. (I've read all, but will re-read in this frame.) Anything else come to mind?
cc , if you know of things
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Tim Gallwey teaches tennis, narrated by Alan Kay. (It's bonkers.)
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @garybasin and 5 others
Here's a remarkable video showing Gallwey teaching someone to play tennis this way: youtube.com/watch?v=50L44h (And, incidentally, explaining how Gallwey influenced the development of modern user interfaces.)