The majority of those who best know the arguments for and against thinking that a given social movement is the world’s most important cause, from pro-life-ism to environmentalism to campaign finance reform, are presumably members of that social movement.
This seems unlikely to me given my reactions to talking to people in other movements, including the ones you mentioned. The idea that what they’re arguing for is “the world’s most important cause” hasn’t explicitly been considered by most of them, and for those who have, few have done any sort of rigorous analysis.
By contrast, part of the big sell of EA is that it actively searches for the world’s biggest causes, and uses a detailed methodology in pursuit of this goal.
This seems unlikely to me given my reactions to talking to people in other movements, including the ones you mentioned. The idea that what they’re arguing for is “the world’s most important cause” hasn’t explicitly been considered by most of them, and for those who have, few have done any sort of rigorous analysis.
By contrast, part of the big sell of EA is that it actively searches for the world’s biggest causes, and uses a detailed methodology in pursuit of this goal.
To be clear, this is a linkpost for Philip Trammell’s blogpost. I’m not involved in the writing.
Apologies for the confusing language, I knew.