How could you think I didn't read what you wrote when I disagreed so specifically with it? EA is something new -- not as a goal, clearly (Bentham had already gotten there) but as a method. And it is more than the people who identify with it, just like mathematics can be distinguished from mathematicians.
If there is something new about EA it is, as a matter of public record, not the use of statistically rigorous cost-/benefit analysis. The hubris!
Anyhow, I will admit that the (putative) indifference to specific causes, so long as they are E and A, and (ostensibly) apolitical posture is original.
They are ofcourse transparently performative. Animal welfare cannot be measured but only assumed, and should therefore by their own “philosophy” rank lower than the lowest net positive measurable utility at any price.
Whatever else “effective” implies, it must include some change in society to be materially meaningfull. While this is not a standard the Longtermist arm adheres to, the rest of EA and the “philosophy” demand it. It doesn’t take all that much imagination to see which political project EA is most aligned with…
