i have many disagreements with effective altruism, even when i was a rationalist i never thought of myself as an EA, but the recent spate of anti-EA nonsense is so blatantly obviously in bad faith i am compelled to do a "nobody gets to pick on my cousin except me" here EAs have consistently been among the most kind, thoughtful, level-headed, and principled people i've ever met. along with rationalists they are the only subcultures i've ever encountered who have a strong norm that they can in theory be persuaded to change their minds on consequential topics by good arguments. you should seriously consider the possibility that, for example, the reason tech billionaire dustin moskovitz funds one of the largest EA organizations is that EAs presented him what he saw as the best argument for what he should do with his billions, which is to find a bunch of thoughtful people to think seriously about how to best spend them to most improve people's lives globally. that is extremely laudable and pretty much the best case! many people are, i think, confused and perhaps frightened about why this relatively small insular ideological group suddenly appears to have such weirdly large amounts of power, especially power wrt AI. you should seriously consider the possibility that it's in part it's because they spent the last 15 years successfully convincing a bunch of powerful people to listen to them using Facts and Logic, and/or that they themselves decided to acquire power using Facts and Logic (such as arguments that AI would be a big deal and thus one should start an AI company, invest in an AI company, or join an AI company). there is a fairly public history here which it is trivial for you to get an LLM to explain to you which you could learn! EAs are (mostly, with of course infamous exceptions) trying to do good things for good reasons and are responsive to thoughtful serious critique. they want thoughtful serious critique! they will listen to thoughtful serious critique! you do not have to call them names and schoolyard bully them!