First off, thank you for reading and for reading so carefully.

To your first point, I'm quite glad to hear that EA has lately championed personal involvement over "earning to give." I still don't think that gets us much past the messiah complex involved in this movement, but it's not something I'm mad at.

To your second point, I wrote specifically there about the more recent EA shift to far-distant, hypothetical disasters taking up resources, rather than going to urgent causes impacting human beings alive right here, right now. I think we can do many horrible things under the motivation of goodness. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," and whatnot. EA folks are no doubt people who want to be good; and a willingness to critique themselves is to be commended. However, diverting significant resources away from suffering people towards *possible* catastrophes that are literally thousands of years in the future strikes me as very cruel indeed.

You mention that EA groups "spent most of their time discussing ways in which they might be getting everything wrong." I think, again, this points to the sense that they *have the capacity* to get everything right. But they don't. That's really my article's whole thesis. Ultimately, you're probably going to be a more effective altruist if you accept that you're not capable of ever knowing what "the most good" could possibly be, and instead putting your resources and talents to work in areas you know need it. Ones you "feel called to," as many a Christian might put it. :-)