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0 pointsluckylion3y ago0 comments

> EA is re-skinned utilitarianism.

Meh, that's a weird take. If it was, it would ask people to act only to maximize outcome and ignore other constraints, because they would be less secondary. As far as I'm aware, it doesn't, it only suggests that, if you want to do something altruistic, you might want to look at what's most effective and not just do anything that vaguely feels or sounds like it might be helpful.

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tomrod3y ago

Define the metric for effective. You'll note it matches utilitarianism.

luckylionOP3y ago

No, it doesn't, and even if it did: since utilitarianism is much more than "if you want to do something for other people, make sure it's helpful" isn't "utilitarianism reskinned".

But that's besides the point, because it obviously isn't. It feels like that's a hot take that neither cares to understand EA, nor understands utilitarianism and just operates on simplified versions of both. Much like people who understand the categorical imperative to be equivalent to the golden rule.

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