I've been wondering about that, too, for a while. A few days ago I found this article on Aeon that is strongly critical of longtermism, and gives much backgroun

I've been wondering about that, too, for a while. A few days ago I found this article on Aeon that is strongly critical of longtermism, and gives much background on what it is: https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-da... In the comments of that article someone posted a link to the following, which is a rebuttal to a similar critique of longtermism again by the Aeon article's author. I link it here for balance: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xtKRPkoMSLTiPNXhM/response-to-phil-torres-the-case-against-longtermism https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xtKRPkoMSLTiPNXhM/... Based on the Aeon article, my understanding is that longtermism is a loosely organised movement that nevertheless nurtures within it the seeds of a future totalitarian ideology, one premised on some views about technological utopias, post-humanism, and utilitarianism taken to extremes. This impression has remained even after reading the rebuttal above, which seems to me to deflect the criticisms not by denying them but by claiming that the ideas criticised by the article are not mainstream within the movement anymore. This has failed to convince me because I understand that the movement is not centrally organised, so it's not easy to know what its members hold to be mainstream views, or not. That such extreme, and repugnant, ideas have been expressed by members of the movement (not less some luminaries like Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord, apparently) is what is criticised in the first place, and I think there's good reason for that. On the other hand, it seems to me that, for the time being, longtermists are not activists and just like to imagine how a perfect world would be, even if their ideas sound odd; so they're not harming anyone. The question is whether their movement will morph into an activist ideology, and lead their members to commit atrocities in its name, like so many other movements that take ideas about moral duty and the common good to extremes. I don't know anything about the lesswrong community except that it congregates on a website with the same name (that I don't read) and I don't know what are the */acc type communities the OP is referring to.