Qiaochu Yuan defends EA against 'McCarthyism' wave of bad-faith attacks
amplifiedamp · x · 2026-09-16
Qiaochu Yuan published a long thread defending effective altruism against a recent spate of attacks he calls blatantly bad faith — "they're gonna do McCarthyism to effective altruists." He argues EAs and rationalists are rare subcultures genuinely open to being persuaded by good arguments, citing Dustin Moskovitz's billion-dollar funding of EA as evidence of that persuasive power.
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