A developer's critique of how EA/longtermism rhetoric pulls people in
banteg · x · 2026-09-18
Developer banteg shares both a satirical greentext and a more serious reading on how effective altruism/longtermism rhetorical arguments progressively onboard people into the movement.
The greentext sketches the classic path: spreadsheet-optimal charity (mosquito nets) → 'why only count people alive today?' → future people matter → sliding toward prioritizing the far future over present suffering. The author also used ChatGPT to generate a rhetoric-and-counterargument analysis, criticizing longtermism's slippery-slope logic. A notable piece of AI-community ideological commentary.
Related event: Greentext Mocks Effective Altruism's Longtermist Logic(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Andrew Ng Pushes Back on AI Extinction Fears: 'More Science Fiction Than Science' — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-18
- As models improve, scaffolding falls away: Axolotl moves integrations out of core — MoonL88537 · 2026-09-18
- LLMs can map known unknowns, but don't ask them for evidence where none exists — StewartalsopIII · 2026-09-18
- Clive Wearing insists he's dead despite being awake — a consciousness case AI circles cite — yeastsplainer · 2026-09-18
- Is maximizing a simple goal really easier? Rethinking paperclip rationality as an optimization problem — jessi_cata · 2026-09-18
- AI agents killed flow state — but faster iterations may bring it back — cocktailpeanut · 2026-09-18