In this thread, I would like to invite people to summarize their attitude to Effective Altruism and to summarise their justification for their attitude while identifying the framework or perspective their using.
Initially I prepared an article for a discussion post (that got rather long) and I realised it was from a starkly utilitarian value system with capitalistic economic assumptions. I'm interested in exploring the possibility that I'm unjustly mindkilling EA.
I've posted my write-up as a comment to this thread so it doesn't get more air time than anyone else's summarise and they can be benefit equally from the contrasting views.
I encourage anyone who participates to write up their summary and identify their perspective BEFORE they read the others, so that the contrast can be most plain.
I didn’t respond to your critiques that went into a more political direction because there was already discussion of those aspects there that I wouldn’t have been able to add anything to. There is concern in the movement in general and in individual EA organizations that because EAs are so predominantly computer scientists and philosophers, there is a great risk of incurring known and unknown unknowns. In the first category, more economists for example would be helpful; in the second category it will be important to bring people from a wide variety of demographics into the movement without compromising its core values. As computer scientist I’m pretty median again.
Indeed. I’m not sure if the median EA is concerned about this problem yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are. Many EA organizations are certainly very alert to the problem.
This concern manifests in movement-building (GWWC et al.) and capacity-building (80k Hours, CEA, et al.). There is also concern that I share but that may not yet be median EA concern that we should focus more on movement-wide capacity-building, networking, and some sort of quality over quantity approach to allow the movement to be better and more widely informed. (And by “quantity” I don’t mean to denigrate anyone but just I mean more people like myself who already feel welcomed in the movement because everyone speaks their dialect and whose peers are easily convinced too.)
Throughout the time that I’ve been part of the movement, the general sentiment either in the movement as a whole or within my bubble of it has shifted in some ways. One trend that I’ve perceived is that in the earlier days there was more concern over trying vs. really trying while now concern over putting one’s activism on a long-term sustainable basis has become more important. Again, this may be just my filter bubble. This is encouraging as it shows that everyone is very well capable of updating, but it also indicates that as of one or two years ago, we still had a bunch to learn even concerning rather core issues. In a few more years, I’ll probably be more confident that come core questions are not so much in flux anymore that new EAs can overlook or disregard them and thereby dilute what EA currently stands for or shift it into a direction I couldn’t identify with anymore.
Again, I’m not ignoring your points on political topics, I just don’t feel sufficiently well-informed to comment. I’ve been meaning to read David Roodman’s literature review on open borders–related concerns, since I greatly enjoyed some of his other work, but I haven’t yet. David Roodman now works for the Open Philanthropy Project.
I’ve always perceived EA as whatever stands at the end of any such process, or maybe not the end but some critical threshold when a person realizes that they agree with the core tenets that they value other’s well-being, and that greater well-being or the well-being or more beings weighs heavier than lesser well-being or the well-being of fewer. If they reach such a threshold. If they do, I see all three processes as relevant.
Of course.
Yes, thanks! That’s why I was most interested in your comment in this thread, and because all other comments that piqued my interest in similar ways already had comprehensive replies below them when I found the thread.
This needs to be turned into a concrete strategy, and I’m sure CEA is already on that. Identifying exactly what sorts of expertise are in short supply in the movement and networking among the people who possess just this expertise. I’ve made some minimal-effort attempts to pitch EA to economists, but inviting such people to speak at events like EA Global is surely a much more effective way of drawing them and their insights into the movement. That’s not limited to economists of course.
Do you have ideas for people or professions the movement would benefit from and strategies for drawing them in and making them feel welcome?
Given how many philosophers there are in the movement, this would surprise me. Is it possible that it’s more the result of the ubiquitous disagreement between philosophers?
I’ve wondered about that in the context of moral progress. Sometimes the idea of moral progress is attacked on the grounds that proponents base their claims for moral progress on how history has developed into the direction of our current status quo, which is rather pointless since by that logic any historical trend toward the status quo would then become “moral progress.” However, by my moral standards the status quo is far from perfect.
Analogously I see that the political views EAs are led to hold are so heterogeneous that some have even thought about coining new terms for this political stance (such as “newtilitarianism”), luckily only in jest. (I’m not objecting to the pun but I’m wary of labels like that.) That these political views are at least somewhat uncommon in their combination suggests to me that we’re not falling into that trap, or at least making an uncommonly good effort of avoiding it. Since the trap is pretty much the default starting point for many of us, it’s likely we still have many legs trapped in it despite this “uncommonly good effort.” The metaphor is already getting awkward, so I’ll just add that some sort of contrarian hypercorrection would of course constitute just another trap. (As it happens, there’s another discussion of the importance of diversity in the context of Open Phil in that Vox article.)
No need for you to address any particular political point I'm making. For now, it is sufficient for me to suggest that reigning progressive ideas about politics are flawed and holding EAs back, without you committing to any particular alternative view.
I'm glad to hear that EAs are focusing more on movement-building and collaboration. I think there is a lot of value in eigenaltruism: being altruistic only towards other eigenaltruistic people who "pay it forward" (see Scott Aaronson's eigenmorality). Civilizations have been built with reciprocal al... (read more)