“EA ‘Worldviews’ Need Rethinking” by Richard Y Chappell

EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

I like Open Phil's worldview diversification. But I don't think their current roster of worldviews does a good job of justifying their current practice. In this post, I'll suggest a reconceptualization that may seem radical in theory but is conservative in practice. Something along these lines strikes me as necessary to justify giving substantial support to paradigmatic Global Health & Development charities in the face of competition from both Longtermist/x-risk and Animal Welfare competitor causes.

Current Orthodoxy

I take it that Open Philanthropy's current "cause buckets" or candidate worldviews are typically conceived of as follows:

• neartermist - incl. animal welfare
• neartermist - human-only
• longtermism / x-risk

We're told that how to weigh these cause areas against each other "hinge[s] on very debatable, uncertain questions." (True enough!) But my impression is that EAs often take the relevant questions to be something like, should we be speciesist? and should we [...]

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Outline:

(00:35) Current Orthodoxy

(01:17) The Problem

(02:43) A Proposed Solution

(04:26) Implications

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
March 18th, 2024

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dmEwQZSbPsYhFay2G/ea-worldviews-need-rethinking

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.