Dev Likens e/acc vs EA Split to Hamilton vs Jefferson: Capital Maxxing vs White-Collar Yeomen
JoshPurtell · x · 2026-09-26
Developer Josh Purtell offers an American founding-history analogy for the AI community's two camps: effective accelerationism resembles Hamilton, betting on capital and industry maxxing, while EA resembles Jefferson — a humanities-minded figure who believed the best country was the status quo perfected, a nation of literate yeoman farmers.
He adds that it's hard to find anything entailed by "forever Obama plus bed nets and slightly better antibiotics" that EAs wouldn't unanimously endorse, calling them dreamers of "white-collar yeomen."
Related event: Dev Compares e/acc vs EA to Jefferson vs Hamilton(2 posts)→
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