Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Well, usually when it feels like a disagreement keeps slipping away, and goalposts keep shifting, a good thing to do is to pin down an empirically testable prediction we disagree on. Which I'm totally happy to do; also happy to drop this if you feel like it's not your circus.

Happy to give feedback on e.g. a community survey, assuming (a) this ideological gap between the leadership and the rank-and-file might actually exist, and (b) might present a problem worth identifying and correcting, but otherwise: not my circus

In practice, I don't think the first paragraph describes the views of most EAs. I don't think most are nearly as time/species-neutral as the leadership is, and I suspect the leadership purposefully avoids pressing on this in order to keep the "big tent" intact.

I think virtually all EAs would agree that "evidence" and "reason" are crucial to determining how to do the most "good," but if pressed, their standards of evidence would vary widely & would mostly be ill-defined. I suspect most EAs are more conservative/risk-averse than leaders.

At this point, I'd like to officially give you the word "redistributive," while claiming MRNT — "moving resources non-transactionally" — for myself. I think EA, in practice, is essentially about MRNT. All my redistributive are belong to you. White flag. Mercy.

Agree that EAs largely don't care much about increasing the rate of economic growth, which is the more crucial side of that coin anyway.

I think most/close to most EAs consider "evidence" akin to "bulletproof meta-analysis," are unwilling to consider anything below GiveWell's standards w/o really understanding what those standards are, & view the practice of EA as fundamentally more self-sacrificial than creative