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Notes -
Honestly, the best thing for EA would be to dump the AI stuff and other galaxy-brain projects, run away from the politics/lobbying stuff, and go back to "doing good better". That's boring and tedious, it's not exciting like "we're trying to save the world from long-term risk of human extinction and colonise the galaxy for a billion years!", but fuck that SF shit. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick. Basic dull, boring stuff that has to be done over and over again when you get up every day, but it has the most effect on real people that you want to help.
(And I'm speaking as someone who loves that SF shit. There are thousands of political lobbying groups, EA doesn't need to be one more fish in the pond. There are already groups worrying about AI risk and pandemic risk and getting hit by the sweet meteor of death risk. Doing efficient, effective work to help the needy is there to be done, are they going to leave it up to religious groups? And if they are, then they don't get to complain about missionaries on church trips to distribute Bibles instead of mosquito nets, because there's a good chance the church mission group is also doing that).
@big-city-gay this is another good explanation of why EA is important even if it doesn't have a large amount of novel theory behind it.
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