Legendary philosopher Peter Singer defends effective altruism. I don’t self-identify as an EA, but I do think highly of the core thesis of using data to decide what actions will do the most good. I do consider myself a longtermist — a philosophical stance which is often thought of as existing under the EA umbrella. Note: there is a common misconception that longtermists *only* care about the long term future, which is false. Most care about the long term future as one major priority, but certainly don’t think we should ignore the issues of today.

When the US Department of War posted on X that they were focused on “Americanism, not effective altruism”, it said much more about them than about the movement I helped to launch 15 years ago.

The simple fact is that while President Trump’s popularity has reached an almost unprecedented-26% approval, rivalled by only Nixon after Watergate, the movement that his administration is spending its time attacking enjoys majority support among those who are familiar with its tenets.

Perhaps that’s why The Economist cover this week has termed it “this century’s biggest idea” because ultimately, a movement focused on the simple question of how to do the most good possible with the resources we have is not, as an internal memo circulating in the White House termed it, “putting shrimp over families”