Greentext roast captures EA's drift from mosquito nets to longtermism

menhguin · x · 2026-09-18

• User banteg posted a greentext-style satire of the typical effective altruism journey: getting convinced by spreadsheet-optimized charity (buying mosquito nets, saving lives efficiently), then a few years later being pulled into longtermism by one innocent question — "why only count people alive today?"
• Replying, menhguin offers a cultural analogy: global health EA has "east coast Ivy League finance vibes," while longtermism has "west coast tech VC vibes."
• The thread lands because EA/longtermism culture is closely intertwined with AI-risk and AGI discourse, and the roast nails how its rhetoric scales from charity to cosmic futures.

Related event: banteg's greentext mockery of longtermism sparks discount-rate debate endorsed by philosopher Chappell(13 posts)→

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