I find mushroom’s heuristic plausible, and I believe it may have such implications for effective altruism, but I’m not confident of that.
I’m concerned that effective altruism won’t become centralized enough to stop its ideas from being misrepresented by vocal individuals (with a large audience). I’m also concerned that whoever bears such power may liable to abusing it. Quieting voices by accusing their owners of being ‘radical’, or ‘crazy’ is a stigmatizing and accusatory label. Even if abuse is only perceived rather than real, this could lead to individuals, or organizations, drawing battle lines over who is qualified to represent effective altruism. Accusations of abuses of power can also be stigmatizing, and can be skewed easily.
Here are my suggestions for avoiding your original worry, Pablo, and preventing (accusations of) abuse of power:
If we indeed believe that it is how an idea is being represented, rather than the idea, or the representing party, that is inadequate, we can make this explicit, so that critical feedback isn’t perceived as a (personal) attack.
If somebody tried establishing a center for effective altruism PR, I expect it would be the CEA, or its new project, Effective Altruism Outreach. In any case, whichever organization stakes that position needs to have lots of integrity. Not only is espousing transparency, impartiality, and integrity the right thing to do, cooperating as such can foster trust within the community that that organization is reliable. So, accusations that such a group is overstepping its unduly censoring someone will be less debilitating, and can be gauged on their merits.
Whatever part of the movement takes the responsibility to manage how ideas are represented should acknowledge their own mistakes, and biases, have some sort of oversight, and welcome feedback from the whole movement on why their actions take place. Ideally, I’d like to see such an organization being as transparent as Givewell. However, I understand if such bureaucracy would be crippling to a lean organization with sparse resources to spend.
Prioritizing outreach activities is a good idea by itself, but I believe another discussion will need to cover how valuable effective altruists believe that is relative to our current endeavors. I respect how William MacAskill, and the Centre for Effective Altruism, have handled media requests and outreach in the last year, and I hope however they’re doing it keeps working as they expand their efforts.
If an individual (re)presents effective altruism well, but is celebrated, or better known, for associating with something much more controversial, I’m not confident in how that should be handled. To use an extreme example, I don’t want effective altruism to be most associated with baby-eating terrorists. However, if someone is well-known as being of a sexual minority, or a transhumanist, or an atheist, I don’t feel comfortable with us telling that person to express that identity less. I might be comfortable with someone very politely asking them to express themselves a bit differently, with less of an edge of fueling outrage. However, that doesn’t seem necessary if in reality that identity is benign and non-threatening, as I believe will most likely be the case.
I find mushroom’s heuristic plausible, and I believe it may have such implications for effective altruism, but I’m not confident of that.
I’m concerned that effective altruism won’t become centralized enough to stop its ideas from being misrepresented by vocal individuals (with a large audience). I’m also concerned that whoever bears such power may liable to abusing it. Quieting voices by accusing their owners of being ‘radical’, or ‘crazy’ is a stigmatizing and accusatory label. Even if abuse is only perceived rather than real, this could lead to individuals, or organizations, drawing battle lines over who is qualified to represent effective altruism. Accusations of abuses of power can also be stigmatizing, and can be skewed easily.
Here are my suggestions for avoiding your original worry, Pablo, and preventing (accusations of) abuse of power:
If we indeed believe that it is how an idea is being represented, rather than the idea, or the representing party, that is inadequate, we can make this explicit, so that critical feedback isn’t perceived as a (personal) attack.
If somebody tried establishing a center for effective altruism PR, I expect it would be the CEA, or its new project, Effective Altruism Outreach. In any case, whichever organization stakes that position needs to have lots of integrity. Not only is espousing transparency, impartiality, and integrity the right thing to do, cooperating as such can foster trust within the community that that organization is reliable. So, accusations that such a group is overstepping its unduly censoring someone will be less debilitating, and can be gauged on their merits.
Whatever part of the movement takes the responsibility to manage how ideas are represented should acknowledge their own mistakes, and biases, have some sort of oversight, and welcome feedback from the whole movement on why their actions take place. Ideally, I’d like to see such an organization being as transparent as Givewell. However, I understand if such bureaucracy would be crippling to a lean organization with sparse resources to spend.
Prioritizing outreach activities is a good idea by itself, but I believe another discussion will need to cover how valuable effective altruists believe that is relative to our current endeavors. I respect how William MacAskill, and the Centre for Effective Altruism, have handled media requests and outreach in the last year, and I hope however they’re doing it keeps working as they expand their efforts.
If an individual (re)presents effective altruism well, but is celebrated, or better known, for associating with something much more controversial, I’m not confident in how that should be handled. To use an extreme example, I don’t want effective altruism to be most associated with baby-eating terrorists. However, if someone is well-known as being of a sexual minority, or a transhumanist, or an atheist, I don’t feel comfortable with us telling that person to express that identity less. I might be comfortable with someone very politely asking them to express themselves a bit differently, with less of an edge of fueling outrage. However, that doesn’t seem necessary if in reality that identity is benign and non-threatening, as I believe will most likely be the case.