Art Chad, a video essay YouTuber who usually comments on political and societal comments recently made a video on EA, calling us a death cult. Although he highlights some positives from the early part of the movement, he thinks our philosophy is too much of a spreadsheet ideology which makes us a "death cult" because our philosophy can lead to the conclusion that we should divert money from current people towards Shrimp and longtermism. I think this is an extreme simplification of the movement, and that he has clearly tried to fit the narrative in order to make an engaging video. However, from his other videos he seems to be a well-meaning person who wants to make the world better, and I am wondering how such people reach such a conclusion about Effective Altruism? Especially considering that he spent like a month on this video.

In my experience of the EA movement on a grassroots level, it is a movement full of well-meaning and morally sound people who are passionate about differing cause areas. People also seriously do a lot of good, and I feel like the world could benefit a lot if more people adopted more of an Effective Altruist mindset. It is not a movement where the utilitarian philosophy we have adopted must necessarily lead to most community member believing in diverting all funding to Shrimp Welfare and longtermism. There is space for those of us who for example prefer the GHD cause area. A quick visit to this forum would also have showed this. What are we doing wrong in the framing of EA which makes certain people become so critical of the movement, and what make the "negatives" stand out so much more? 

Another point I want to raise which is more directly human coming from observation of Art Chad: I am wondering how people are capable to with a clean conscience sit in their living room eating shrimp which they literally made a segment about how much suffering goes through, while tarnishing a movement actively making the world a better place? To me it seems completely absurd. Especially with how many bad things are happening in the world today which one could make a video about and divert attention to. 

Is it perhaps because some of the conclusions of utilitarianism are so insanely uncomfortable that we seem like psychos? Or perhaps there are only specific kind  of people who are compatible with Effective Altruist thinking? 

I don't have the answers to this, and don't expect you to have them either, however, I do these kind of videos can partly explain why EA is not growing. People have an increasingly negative view of Silicon Valley, and although our connection to SV is creating a highly net-positive effect on the world the connection itself makes many people (far-leftists especially), uncomfortable. We are operating in an increasingly narrower niche of animal-loving, empathic and solidaristic people who are not leftists, and definitely not far-right, while being comfortable with maximization based on utility. Maybe the movement has reached a cap in terms of its size?

Anyway, those were just some thought I had based on the following video:

Also, happy easter.