There are uncountably many cases where people defraud/steal from others, destroy the environment or do any number of bad things in order to accumulate wealth for themselves or their families. These are all cases where people have thought that the end (i.e. their own personal benefit) justified the means. Indeed, this kind of behavior is more-or-less the norm. People seek to advance in their careers to make more money to buy the things that they want to buy, often regardless of the moral character of the companies they choose to work for or the detrimental effects that their purchases have on others.
In the case of EA, we now have exactly one instance where someone engaged in this ends-justify-the-means behavior in a morally problematic way, and this is for some reason supposed to show that EA is irredeemably flawed. This seems a bit absurd.
That doesn’t follow at all. Rocks don’t care about us, and the reason that’s true is that rocks aren’t capable of feeling any way at all.
Moreover, even if the universe could properly be said to have feelings, that doesn’t entail anything about the existence of a “higher power”. Humans feel things, but that by itself is not proof or disproof of the existence of a “higher power”
In the case of EA, we now have exactly one instance where someone engaged in this ends-justify-the-means behavior in a morally problematic way, and this is for some reason supposed to show that EA is irredeemably flawed. This seems a bit absurd.