The main insight of the EA movement is to pick some criteria and go with it (rather than the “warm fuzzies” heuristic that most people use).
What criteria you use is up to you and your preferences.
Poor cause choices
or marketable cause choices. Uncontroversial cause choices. The act of giving a recommendation is also outcome focused...you have to think about what percentage of your audience will actually be moved to act as a result of your announcement. Effective Altruism for a meta-charity also means Effective Advertising, which means picking a cause that everyone is convinced about and not just a small splinter of your target audience.
Non-obviousness
Consolidating an old idea under a catchy brand using the momentum of the internet / being the most recent innovator does not mean you’ve invented an idea. EA’s stand on the shoulders of many people who have been trying to do the same thing before them. Notions of things such as “QALYs”, for example, have been around for 50 years.
Inconsistent attitude towards rigor
People don’t usually base life choices like that off of pure altruism. Personal preferences are not entirely altruistic.
Poor psychological understanding
Fourth way: My preference function includes altruistic behavior, but is not entirely altruistic. Morality is only a subset of my preferences. Engaging in Effective Altruism is a way to maximize some of my preferences (the morality related ones, specifically) but that’s just a sub-goal of a larger attempt to maximize all of my preferences.
...and I think I pretty much agree with all your other points
The main insight of the EA movement is to pick some criteria and go with it (rather than the “warm fuzzies” heuristic that most people use).
What criteria you use is up to you and your preferences.
or marketable cause choices. Uncontroversial cause choices. The act of giving a recommendation is also outcome focused...you have to think about what percentage of your audience will actually be moved to act as a result of your announcement. Effective Altruism for a meta-charity also means Effective Advertising, which means picking a cause that everyone is convinced about and not just a small splinter of your target audience.
Consolidating an old idea under a catchy brand using the momentum of the internet / being the most recent innovator does not mean you’ve invented an idea. EA’s stand on the shoulders of many people who have been trying to do the same thing before them. Notions of things such as “QALYs”, for example, have been around for 50 years.
People don’t usually base life choices like that off of pure altruism. Personal preferences are not entirely altruistic.
Fourth way: My preference function includes altruistic behavior, but is not entirely altruistic. Morality is only a subset of my preferences. Engaging in Effective Altruism is a way to maximize some of my preferences (the morality related ones, specifically) but that’s just a sub-goal of a larger attempt to maximize all of my preferences.
...and I think I pretty much agree with all your other points