Done, that's what the charity and grass-roots movements for housing is for.

> actual problems people rationally face every day

Actual problems can be qualified instead of being referred to in abstract. Food in the developed world is effectively a solved problem. Housing should be, but it remains inelastic owing to bad policy.

> All the problems they present (AI, pandemics, whatever) is a hypothetical consequence of the capitalist system.

If some other wink wink system couldn't possibly introduce novel externalities, it is tautologically regressive and imposes more barbaric ones.

Adherents do ask that. You'd have known that if you'd bother to look. But no, it does not reduce all concerns and solutions to your pet ideology.

Your ideological slant isn't much of a mystery, and reveals a conceit that EA itself has an overt political ideological alignment. Demographic surveys show EA is 70% left-leaning. Your far-left sensibility probably more represented than in average population, though still not that much. This is a projection partly owing to high-profile individuals associated you don't like, but mostly because you're not interested in charity, these improvements and what it means to people, because it doesn't satisfy your worldview.

Donations for malaria nets and direct cash transfers lead to tangible immediate difference in peoples' lives. Meanwhile, you sneer at concerns like climate and AI you deem too abstract, while lamenting that EA isn't fixated on some other abstract notion: that a total upheaval of the system, of doing away with Liberalism and private property, solves every problem (the unsaid corollary to the conceit that any solution doesn't matter if it doesn't mean overthrowing Capitalism). You can hand-wave anything and everything as a symptom of Capitalism, as if to say they couldn't happen otherwise, but it's not a compelling argument to most who haven't forgotten 20th-Century Communist experiments. Yeah they sure could sleepwalk their way to success (and to that we hear "oh, they weren't real Communists", or "they failed because of the Capitalists", depending on the day. Completely unserious). Anarchists have even less credibility.

https://80000hours.org/

Find me an evil corporation advertised in the job listings. A single one.

Your entire argument is a projection and strawman. You have no idea what you're talking about. The imperative popularized in EA circles is to work in fields that have the most humane impacts where possible, and otherwise donate money you earn by providing value.

If you're going to argue that merely working for FANG or high-earning positions is tantamount to aiding "evil" corporations then you're chastising a lot more people than just EA adherents.

Your whole thing I suspect is informed by the sentiment that making good money must categorically be evil, or some other leftist notion.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. How are you "ranking"? The most high-profile EA-adjacent personalities are guys like Scott Alexander, Benjamin Todd.

That much is clear. No one "owns" or "leads" EA, it's not a monolith; people have their own beliefs and co-opt it, including crazies. The only common tenet is in the name.

Notwithstanding that "shrimp welfare" and the like is in the margins, it does not preclude the overwhelmingly anthropocentric charitable giving by most members.

I mean, the most popular writer associated with that world, Scott Alexander, donated his kidney just to help others. Knowing the good people are trying to do, it's unseemly to me for EA not only to be discarded but viciously attacked because of "vibes" and weirdos who associate themselves with it.

You used the term "an excuse" twice; for what, a hidden motive to do harm? I think some types like Bentham's Bulldog are wrong or misguided in some respects, that doesn't mean you can leap to some notion that they want to harm humanity in the most stupid way possible: donating a meagre sum to shrimp welfare.

The thousands who donate to charity like Against Malaria Foundation or direct cash transfers, and many who pledge to donate a large percentage of their income?

It's childish to pretend like Economists are supposed to anticipate everyone's every move in order for their work to be given credence. If you think tariffs are bad for consumers, an Economists worked that out for you.

You cannot divorce dialogue from change in sentiments among the public. It spreads for a reason.

For instance, we've entered a period of populist hysteria with both left/right variants.