I think the Utilitarian arguments you presented are quite strong, such as precommiting to certain principles being very advantageous, but surely they're not infinitely advantageous right? A few billion is quite a lot.

To the people voting 'disagree', what OP said above is clearly true. Perhaps people are taking it to imply that the utilitarian course of action here is correct, but I see no such implication.

I think a better forum norm would be for someone to comment spelling out the perceived implication and why they disagree with it, and have other people upvote that. 

It's interesting that (being from the Guardian), that article presents the story as being a scandal, with the implication that Cummings was being corrupt. 

I don't know the answer to that myself, but if you find it out and let me know I'd be happy to update the guide.

Thanks for doing this Richenda!

Is anyone familiar with the philosophical literature on that? My understanding is that it's controversial.

Separately, what's the connection to moral realism?

Yes, the .impact team (particular Patrick Brinich-Langlois) have been working on this for a little while, and it's long been part of our to do list for the forum.

(There's a whole set up procedure for them that they follow, including there being once a month. It's part of their procedure for doing the EA Newsletter to post an open thread with its contents at the same time. What sort of a board member are you not knowing every single detail? :p ;) )

Yes, the .impact team has the details - probably neatest if I don't post it here!

When we did them once a month they got only a few comments, but I'd say that's no problem and they're still helpful. We added that link to them in the sidebar, so that's a reason to keep them up. We should change the intro text to explicitly welcome people new to EA with any sorts of questions or observations.

Great post - thanks Georgie!