Thank you for your post! I think it is essential to consider how charity interacts with power dynamics and the risks of neocolonial approaches, but this did make me think of a point in this kind of critique that consistently puzzles me.
You write:
The final, and perhaps most foundational critique, is that EA interventions are too often designed from the outside âbased on what donors or researchers believe is effectiveâ without meaningful consultation with the people these interventions are supposed to help. The result, critics say, is not just technocratic or impersonal, but paternalistic: a form of help that is imposed, rather than co-created. If poor people are experts in their own needs, who is in a better position to know what would help them? And if effective altruists genuinely want to improve lives, why not begin by amplifying the voices of those they aim to support?
I live in a wealthy country, yet I often appreciate when problems are solved for me without needing my direct involvement. The underlying critique here is valid: local knowledge is invaluable, and listening to those affected will usually improve interventions. As a general heuristic, amplifying local voices makes sense.
However, when I consider how progress works in my own life and in developed countries more broadly, the picture looks different. Many improvements I rely on exist because experts, not locals, prioritized technical knowledge and scale. The water from my tap meets WHO standards rather than being based on local opinion. My appliances result from global competition that identifies expertise wherever it exists. Healthcare is guided not just by local doctors, but also by national and international bodies that assess quality and effectiveness. Medical breakthroughs often arise from global expertise rather than local insight. These examples illustrate that relying solely on local perspectives would leave wealthy countries significantly worse off.
This raises a question: why do we hold global development to a standard of strict localism, when wealthier societies themselves achieved prosperity by leveraging expertise wherever it was found? The principles that drive progress in developed nations, identifying and scaling the best solutions, are directly relevant to tackling global poverty.
Of course, this approach should not override fairness or safety. If interventions risk active harm or require sensitive political trade-offs, local input is crucial. But many EA-funded interventionsâlike reducing worm infestations, malaria, or lead exposureâare a lot like the water from my tap: technocratic precisely because they avoid contentious political questions. These are large-scale problems that individuals cannot realistically address alone, yet they have minimal local opposition when implemented effectively.
In this sense, I think EA is often more systemic than critics acknowledge. It focuses on solving deep-rooted problems through scalable solutions, much like the systems that underpin prosperity in wealthier countries.
This raises a question: why do we hold global development to a standard of strict localism, when wealthier societies themselves achieved prosperity by leveraging expertise wherever it was found? The principles that drive progress in developed nations, identifying and scaling the best solutions, are directly relevant to tackling global poverty.
Because global development itself created all of these problems in the first place. From an abstract organizational point of view, yes, you could argue that at some point everyday people donât want to be considering technically detailed problems that are essential to their lives. But in the context of history I find it to be hard to use this as an argument in order to justify why the same epistemology of efficiency that nourished the capitalist drive for the last 500 years should now be used in order to undo its consequences.
But many EA-funded interventionsâlike reducing worm infestations, malaria, or lead exposureâare a lot like the water from my tap: technocratic precisely because they avoid contentious political questions. These are large-scale problems that individuals cannot realistically address alone, yet they have minimal local opposition when implemented effectively.
Again, here we are focusing on solving the problem, without really understanding how it came about in the first place. This article goes into much depth about the decolonization of the global health system and addresses how the current condition-setting for Malaria has been a creation of our very own. Similarly lead exposure is a direct consequence of the extensive mining the continent has endured for the last 200 years.
The point is not to say: âEA has created these problems and now it wants to solve themâ. But if we use these interventions as the poster boy example for EAâs cause, we should be rather laying the focus on how we can effectively inhibit our Western governments, companies and NGOs to reproduce the same logic nowadays, rather than cushioning the current systemic reality of the Global South that in large parts is still a creation of the companies headquartered close to our conference gatherings.
Thank you for your post! I think it is essential to consider how charity interacts with power dynamics and the risks of neocolonial approaches, but this did make me think of a point in this kind of critique that consistently puzzles me.
You write:
I live in a wealthy country, yet I often appreciate when problems are solved for me without needing my direct involvement. The underlying critique here is valid: local knowledge is invaluable, and listening to those affected will usually improve interventions. As a general heuristic, amplifying local voices makes sense.
However, when I consider how progress works in my own life and in developed countries more broadly, the picture looks different. Many improvements I rely on exist because experts, not locals, prioritized technical knowledge and scale. The water from my tap meets WHO standards rather than being based on local opinion. My appliances result from global competition that identifies expertise wherever it exists. Healthcare is guided not just by local doctors, but also by national and international bodies that assess quality and effectiveness. Medical breakthroughs often arise from global expertise rather than local insight. These examples illustrate that relying solely on local perspectives would leave wealthy countries significantly worse off.
This raises a question: why do we hold global development to a standard of strict localism, when wealthier societies themselves achieved prosperity by leveraging expertise wherever it was found? The principles that drive progress in developed nations, identifying and scaling the best solutions, are directly relevant to tackling global poverty.
Of course, this approach should not override fairness or safety. If interventions risk active harm or require sensitive political trade-offs, local input is crucial. But many EA-funded interventionsâlike reducing worm infestations, malaria, or lead exposureâare a lot like the water from my tap: technocratic precisely because they avoid contentious political questions. These are large-scale problems that individuals cannot realistically address alone, yet they have minimal local opposition when implemented effectively.
In this sense, I think EA is often more systemic than critics acknowledge. It focuses on solving deep-rooted problems through scalable solutions, much like the systems that underpin prosperity in wealthier countries.
Not sure I even agree with this part. Contrast land use regulation in Japan versus in the United States.
Because global development itself created all of these problems in the first place. From an abstract organizational point of view, yes, you could argue that at some point everyday people donât want to be considering technically detailed problems that are essential to their lives. But in the context of history I find it to be hard to use this as an argument in order to justify why the same epistemology of efficiency that nourished the capitalist drive for the last 500 years should now be used in order to undo its consequences.
Again, here we are focusing on solving the problem, without really understanding how it came about in the first place. This article goes into much depth about the decolonization of the global health system and addresses how the current condition-setting for Malaria has been a creation of our very own. Similarly lead exposure is a direct consequence of the extensive mining the continent has endured for the last 200 years.
The point is not to say: âEA has created these problems and now it wants to solve themâ. But if we use these interventions as the poster boy example for EAâs cause, we should be rather laying the focus on how we can effectively inhibit our Western governments, companies and NGOs to reproduce the same logic nowadays, rather than cushioning the current systemic reality of the Global South that in large parts is still a creation of the companies headquartered close to our conference gatherings.