I remember enjoying reading the book "After Lives" byJohn Casey, about different conceptions of the afterlife. Obviously, the only possibility of living eternally would be some kind of "biological uploading" carried out across time by a future altruistic civilization, something that seems highly improbable to us today (but which would trump Pascal's wager, by the way).

In any case, these fantasies are above all revealing of the culture of each era. Why did the Egyptians believe in the afterlife and not the Babylonians? Many consider that this belief in divine benevolence implied a certain progression in earthly benevolence.

You understand that "academic knowledge" encompasses basically all of science, right? 

Obviously, I was not referring to the empirical sciences, but, as is clear from the context, to the social sciences, which have a certain capacity to influence moral culture.

You have the impression that the work of academic professionals is rigorously focused on the truth. I think that there are some self-evident truths about social progress that are not currently being addressed in academia. 

I don't think that EA is a complete ideology today, but its foundation is based on a great novelty: conceiving social change from a trait of human behavior (altruism).

Of course, I agree that EA contains extravagant, Byzantine, and biased approaches, influenced by all sorts of traditions. But there is one approach that is original, unique, and that opens a window for social change. In the world of conventional academic knowledge, there is nothing but highly intelligent people trying to build successful careers.

The critique of "undisciplined iconoclasm" is welcome. There is never enough improvement when there is so much to gain.

I think many people like myself once detected something nearly divine in effective altruism's emphasis on sacrificing personal consumption to help the world's poorest people, not for any kind of recognition or external reward, but just to do it. That is act of basically selfless love.

And "love" is a real phenomenon, a part of human behavior, that deserves analysis and understanding. It is not ornamental, nor a vague idealistic reference, nor a "reductio ad absurdum".

I think maybe people mistake the process of research, which takes time and hard work

I think you're confusing "hard work" with the disclosure of wisdom.

Take a look at the history of philosophy and you'll find plenty of hard work in medieval scholasticism, or in Marxist dialectical materialism. Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophers... and he was a Nazi and organized book burnings. Sartre supported Stalinism. They were true scholars who worked very hard, with extraordinary intellectual capacity and commendable academic careers.

Wisdom is something else entirely. It stems from an unbiased perspective and risks breaking with paradigms. "Effective Altruism" might be close to this. For the first time, there's a movement for social change centered on a behavioral trait, detached from old traditions and political constraints.

If by "taking seriously" we mean acting effectively, the problem, as I already wrote, is that we have to choose options.

The most plausible option must be the one that increases the possibilities for all kinds of altruistic action. Schubert and Caviola, in their book *Effective Altruism and the Human Mind*, consider it acceptable to offer altruistic options that, while perhaps not the most effective from a logical standpoint, may be more appealing to the general public (thus increasing the number of altruistic agents and the resulting altruistic action in general).

It is necessary to find a middle ground based on trial and error, always bearing in mind that increasing the number of people motivated to act altruistically should be the primary objective. Logically, I am referring to a motivation based on rational and enlightened principles, and one that takes into account the psychological, cultural, and social factors inherent in human altruistic behavior.

The main factor in "Effective Altruism" is altruistic motivation. Long-term options are not very motivating due to the cluelessness factor. Nor are options for animal welfare as motivating as those that involve reducing human suffering in the present moment.

When we have as many agents of "Effective Altruism" as, for example, followers of Jehovah's Witnesses or communist militants (outside of communist states), then we will be able to make many more altruistic choices of all kinds. Isn't this plausible?

“you have to take seriously every position with huge implications provided it is not extremely implausible.”

Some views are ridiculously implausible even if you couldn’t out-debate some of their advocates.

So it all depends on what is plausible, even if you can't refute what is implausible or not.

There may be many positions with huge implications, but you can't take them all. You have to choose. And to do that, you have to judge: what criteria should be followed to trust the technical expertise of others, particularly in speculations as complex and far removed from the present as long-termism?

In the example of nuclear risk, let's remember what happened in 1962. Was JFK crazy to force a crisis that could have led the world to destruction?

When we work from a vision, we can measure progress against whether actions move us closer or farther from it, not whether a specific forecast proved to be correct. This enables continuous course correction without losing sense of purpose. 

A very lucid view. The vision is constructed from what we know about our current conditions, so it is more realistic and tailored to our knowledge. Long-term predictions are often erroneous because they ignore logically unforeseeable circumstances (technological and cultural changes).

But we must not fall into the error of constructing a "vision" from entirely contemporary elements. We must know how to extract the essential and promising from the present. Current progressivism, for example, is based on a political model that is probably exhausted. Let us remember that Voltaire and Montesquieu advocated humanist development... but they could not foresee the structural political changes (universal suffrage, political human rights, etc.) that this would entail.

Is it actually possible to increase human compassion and do we have any reason to believe that investment in this would provide good value or could result in significant progress? 

Everything seems to indicate that the cultural evolution of civilization is moving in the direction of increasing compassionate emotions. Even in recent times, we can observe how ethical conceptions urging action to remedy the suffering of our fellow human (and non-humans) beings have become popular almost year after year. The very emergence of the EA movement points in this direction.

However, we are far from achieving the ultimate goal of a prosocial planetary culture, in the sense of the development of an ethos of benevolence, compassion, altruism, and total control of aggression based on rational, enlightened principles. And this is the fundamental problem that needs to be debated. Progress toward a fully compassionate society can no longer be linear (improvements in politics, education, and habits). It will likely require a rupture. And that always entails an epistemic conflict.

increasing compassion is not a stated priority of key EA organisations

Not yet, unfortunately. But interventions in that vein appear even in this very Forum. From a utilitarian perspective, no one can deny that increasing the number of altruistic people is the best means of increasing altruistic action at all levels...

The epistemic conflict: we would have to accept the exhaustion of political change to achieve the highest humanistic goals.

All political change implies acceptance of the system of legal coercion to improve social behavior. Therefore, it will never renounce the mechanisms of aggression, repression, and the instrumentalization of the individual for the supposed common good.

However, there is evidence (or at least a very reasonable hope) that moral changes (moral evolution) originate through non-political mechanisms: ideological movements that, supported by new cultural symbolisms (for example, the very concept of "compassion" or more recent creations such as "empathy" or "effective altruism"), develop lifestyles of a higher moral standard using a wide variety of psychological strategies selected through "trial and error." But until now, all movements to improve moral behavior have developed within the framework of religious traditions (monasticism, Puritanism). Changing this is the task at hand, and it requires a paradigm shift.

Increasing compassion at the cultural level solely through youth education or popular pedagogy can never match the transformative power of the ancient religions. Isn't it a fact that all nations where secular humanitarianism thrives... are those with a historical past of reformed Christianity?

Very valuable post, thank you, RedTeam.

All of this shows that much more can be done to increase the number of altruistic people, because, after all, if happiness is a motivation... happiness is something that, in general terms, we give to each other.

The factor of technological advancement must be taken into account. A fully cooperative humanity committed to the elimination of all forms of suffering can get at its disposal technological means with a power as unimaginable today as our current technology could have been unimaginable to the wise Aristotle more than two thousand years ago.