I’m surprised at the three disagree votes. Most of this seemed almost trivially true to me:
Popular political issues are non-neglected and likely to be more intractable (people have psychological commitments to one side)
The reputational cost you bear in terms of turning people off to high-marginal-impact issues by associating with their political enemies is great than the low maginal benefit to these popular issues
Make the trade-off yourself, but be aware of the costs
Seems like good advice/a solid foundation for thinking about this.
A minor personal concern I have is foreclosing a maybe-harder-to-achieve, but more valuable equilibrium: one where EAs are perceived as quite politically diverse and savvy in both sides of popular politics.
Crucially, this vision depends on EAs engaging with political issues in non-EA fora and not trying to debate which political views are EA or aren’t “EA” (or tolerated “within EA”). The former is likely to get EA ideas taken more seriously by a wider range of people à la Scott Alexander and Ezra Klein; the latter is likely to push people who were already engaged with EA ideas further towards their personal politics.
I’m surprised at the three disagree votes. Most of this seemed almost trivially true to me:
Popular political issues are non-neglected and likely to be more intractable (people have psychological commitments to one side)
The reputational cost you bear in terms of turning people off to high-marginal-impact issues by associating with their political enemies is great than the low maginal benefit to these popular issues
Make the trade-off yourself, but be aware of the costs
Seems like good advice/a solid foundation for thinking about this.
A minor personal concern I have is foreclosing a maybe-harder-to-achieve, but more valuable equilibrium: one where EAs are perceived as quite politically diverse and savvy in both sides of popular politics.
Crucially, this vision depends on EAs engaging with political issues in non-EA fora and not trying to debate which political views are EA or aren’t “EA” (or tolerated “within EA”). The former is likely to get EA ideas taken more seriously by a wider range of people à la Scott Alexander and Ezra Klein; the latter is likely to push people who were already engaged with EA ideas further towards their personal politics.