Eliezer Yudkowsky tries to distance from EA, but old posts show he coined and promoted its core ideas
jessi_cata · x · 2026-09-23
A thread notes that while Eliezer Yudkowsky has recently tried to dissociate from "EAs", he was an early promoter of their main ideas and even the name itself. Quoted passages argue effective altruism requires cold calculation over emotional impulse, and that maximizing lives saved is a duty as strong as the duty to save anyone at all. Replies riff on rationalists' long-standing tolerance for scope-insensitive consequentialism. A slice of AI-safety community history and drama.
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