How can the press be correct about what something is, when that something has since its inception been both vocally and actively different? Even going back to Singers books that sort of kicked this all off its specifically said to be different to utilitarianism. Most advocates of EA say they're not utilitarian. I'm saying I'm not utilitarian. EA organizations actions are clearly not utilitarian in general.
I don't really know how to defend EA as not Utilitarian beyond that, except saying take a look at some EA-based books or blog posts that aren't from the last month and decide for yourself!
If you're genuine about learning more to have a balanced view I really do recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qslo4-DpzPs. This to me is a good representation of what EA is and is challenged by someone in a sensible way.
You keep using and implying the term learn as if I haven't read about this quite a few times over the past decade, evaluated it, and found it wanting. Please do me a favor and at least acknowledge that many people you interact with regarding EA have thought about it and aren't babes in the wool.
EA is reskinned utilitarianism, which folks have repeated pointed out.
> EA is reskinned utilitarianism, which folks have repeated pointed out.
Well then I respectfully argue you're misinformed, or simply reading a small subset that is utilitarian. I don't know a single utilitarian in the EA circles I'm in. Central EA-orgs define themselves as not utilitarian. There's many sources arguing you give what you can afford while a utilitarian approach would be to give beyond that if you can save more lives. SBF would be championed as a hero, not a villain, for his ponzi scheme. No money would be going to animal welfare or modern healthcare worries because longtermism would have won the argument. There'd be more than one case of someone using EA to cause harm like robbing a bank. There'd be popular EA speakers calling themselves utilitarian in public. There'd be a single post arguing the ends justify the means from a central EA organisation.
Etc...
EA is very simply the idea that one should check the efficiency of charities and try get the best bang for their dollar. That is it.
Maybe it'd help to understand your idea of what EA and Utilitarianism actually are? Because there's a disconnect somewhere between us. And utilitarianism is a huge subject so perhaps your thinking of a particular kind that is different to my (and many EA's) understanding of the topic.
> There's many sources arguing you give what you can afford while a utilitarian approach would be to give beyond that if you can save more lives
A misunderstanding of utilitarianism. If telling people to give everything makes them give nothing, then it is a bad approach. The utilitarian aims to maximize the amount given, which may entail telling them to give less. You treat utilitarianism as if we are philosophers considering it in theory, not practitioners who have accepted its logic.
>SBF would be championed as a hero, not a villain, for his ponzi scheme.
A terrible approach for similar reasons. Telling people you intend to scam them is a good way to get them to not give you money.
>No money would be going to animal welfare or modern healthcare worries because longtermism would have won the argument.
Treated similarly: EA is like a funnel. They draw you in by saying "you give to charity anyways, shouldn't you do so 'effectively'?" Then, instead of telling you which local homeless shelters are best, they tell you "effective" means curing diseases in africa. Once you accept that, then they have another style of charity to sell you. They carefully avoid pushing you too far, to avoid having you throw out the whole project.
> EA is very simply the idea that one should check the efficiency of charities and try get the best bang for their dollar.
"Effectiveness" is not defined, and any concrete definition is carefully buried. In practice, it usually means "maximizing human welfare" or something to that effect (ie utilitarianism), but they will carefully avoiding forcing that definition on anyone. "Oh, you want to donate to a local foodbank," they might say, "better make sure its an effective food bank" - this for reasons explained above. But every EA organization knows exactly what it means by effective, which is always some variant of utilitarianism. Importantly, they never refer to it as such, because utilitarianism is a ideology, and thus open to criticism. Instead, they always describe it in terms of platitudes that seems sufficiently obvious as to be impossible to question. In this way, they prevent anyone from falling off the ramp.
> you're misinformed, or <slightly nicer statement of misinformed>
I'm confident I'm not misinformed, and I have no need to inefficiently waste your and, much worse, my and other HN readers' time arguing with a clear acolyte on the topic. So, to circle back to the portion you dodged from my prior comment:
>> Please do me a favor and at least acknowledge that many people you interact with regarding EA have thought about it and aren't babes in the wool.
----
> I don't know a single utilitarian in the EA circles I'm in ... There'd be popular EA speakers calling themselves utilitarian in public.
With due respect, your personal take on the EA movement is less informative than* that of* the core EA thinkers, which I've reviewed. Why would they not want to claim association to utilitarianism? Utilitarianism has a lot of nasty known failure modes and edge cases. Repackaging it is more sellable than fixing an older idea.
It's covered briefly here https://www.effectivealtruism.org/faqs-criticism-objections