Many goals I’ve seen in the EA scene are more like… Preventing death and abject poverty; the kinds of things which statistically prevent success across a popula

Many goals I’ve seen in the EA scene are more like… Preventing death and abject poverty; the kinds of things which statistically prevent success across a population. We can talk about difficult stages at the individual level, but if an entire population faces things like dying from mosquito bites, I don’t think we gain anything or do anyone a service by not helping. These are people who can’t pull themselves up by the bootstraps because they’re a little too busy trying not to die. Edit: you mention not liking the word “should” in this context, yet you say people should do the good deeds themselves rather than donate money. Can you articulate why without a should here? The point of donating money is that if you donate it well, it can have a greater impact than if you were to act independently. People have put a lot of thought and organization into it, and it isn’t an afterthought spurred by reluctance or laziness. I believe the philosophical goal is to maximize the reduction of unnecessary suffering. I could be wrong, but with that in mind it could make a lot of sense to donate money rather than act independently.