This post is co-authored with Ben Garfinkel. It is cross-posted from the CEA blog. A PDF version can be found here.
Summary: Some strategic decisions available to the effective altruism m...
TL;DR: I'm releasing a website that ranks philanthropists according to EA principles and research, and allows users to re-rank the list using their own assumptions. I'd like feedback and help making it better. I'd especially like ideas for how to make the results more trustworthy. Funding may be available.
Crossposted to LessWrong.
...
Disclaimer: Although I work on the Groups Team at CEA, I’m writing this in a personal capacity, and this post does not constitute an endorsement by CEA.
Agency - the realisation that you really can just do things.
TL;DR
Biosecurity needs people (of any background) who are agentic and have a high execution velocity and track record....
Could you elaborate further what you have in mind with a moral cluelessness response?
Personally, I’ll say that most of those supposed anti-consequentialist thought experiments are helpful for illustrating why you need to be thoughtful when applying consequentialism (as is the case with every moral framework), but they do nothing to refute consequentialism. For example, there are many perfectly good utilitarian reasons to not conduct organ harvesting, such as threatening trust in institutions, risking your ability to do good in the future, the fact that you are considering that option suggests you might be suffering from delusion or some other problem which impairs your ability to assess the likelihood of being discovered or the benefits of harvesting the organs, etc.