This is a good post if you view it as a list of frequently asked questions about effective altruism when interacting with people who are new to the concept and a list of potential good answers to those questions â including that sometimes the answer is to just let it go. (If someone is at college just to party, just say ârock onâ.)
But thereâs a fine line between effective persuasion and manipulation. Iâm uncomfortable with this:
This is an important conversation to have within EA, but I donât think having that be your first EA conversation is conducive to you joining. I just say something like âAbsolutelyâtheyâre imperfect, but the best tools available for now. Youâre welcome to join one of our meetings where we chat about this type of consideration.â
If I were a passer-by who stopped at a table to talk to someone and they said this to me, I would internally think, âOh, so youâre trying to work me.â
Back when I tabled for EA stuff, my approach to questions like this was to be completely honest. If my honest thought was, âYeah, I donât know, maybe weâre doing it all wrong,â then I would say that.
I donât like viewing people as a tool to achieve my ends â as if I know better than them and my job in life is to tell them what to do.
And I think a lot of people are savvy enough to tell when youâre working them and recoil at being treated like your tool.
If you want people to be vulnerable and put themselves on the line, youâve got to be vulnerable and put yourself on the line as well. Youâve got to tell the truth. Youâve got be willing to say, âI donât know.â
Do you want to be treated like a tool? Was being treated like a tool what put you in this seat, talking to passers-by at this table? Why would you think anyone else would be any different? Why not appeal to whatâs in them thatâs the same as whatâs in you that drew you to effective altruism?
When I was an organizer at my universityâs EA group, I was once on a Skype call with someone whose job it was to provide resources and advice to student EA groups. I think he was at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) â this would have been in 2015 or 2016 â but I donât remember for sure.
This was a truly chilling experience because this person advocated what I saw then and still see now as unethical manipulation tactics. He advised us â the group organizers â to encourage other students to tie their sense of self-esteem or self-worth to how committed they were to effective altruism or how much they contributed to the cause.
This person from CEA or whatever the organization was also said something like, âif weâre successful, effective altruism will solve all the worldâs problems in priority sequenceâ. That and the manipulation advice made me think, âOh, this guyâs crazy.â
I recently read about a psychology study about persuading people to eat animal organs during World War II. During WWII, there was a shortage of meat, but animalsâ organs were being thrown away, despite being edible. A psychologist (Kurt Lewin) wanted to try two different ways of convincing women to cook with animal organs and feed them to their families.
The first way was to devise a pitch to the women designed to be persuasive, designed to convince them. This is from the position of, âI figured out whatâs right, now let me figure out what to say to you to make you do whatâs right.â
The second way was to pose the situation to the women as the studyâs designers themselves thought of it. This is from the position of, âIâm treating you as an equal collaborator on solving this problem, Iâm respecting your intellect, and Iâm respecting your autonomy.â
Five times more women who were treated in the second way cooked with organs, 52% of the group vs. 10%.
Among women who had never cooked with organs before, none of them cooked with organs after being treated the first way. 29% of the women who had never cooked with organs before did so for the first time after being treated the second way.
You can read more about this study here. (There might be different ways to interpret which factors in this experiment were important, but Kurt Lewin himself advocated the view that if you want things to change, get people involved.)
This isnât just about whatâs most effective at persuasion, as if persuasion is the end goal and the only thing that matters. Treating people as intellectual equals also gives them the opportunity to teach you that youâre wrong. And you might be wrong. Wouldnât you rather know?
Iâm sad to hear that youâd feel manipulated by my reply to the QALY-doubting response, but Iâm very happy and thankful to get the feedback! We do want to show that EA has some useful tools and conclusions, while also being honest and open about whatâs still being worked on. Iâll take this to heart.
I feel the need to clarify that none of these responses are meant to be âsales-yâ or to trick people into joining a movement that doesnât align with their values. My reply was more based on the ideas that we need more skeptics. If they have epistemic (as opposed to ethical) objections, I think itâs particularly important to signal that theyâre invited. My condolences for having gotten such awful advice from whatever organization it was, but thatâs not how we do things at EA Lund.
This is a good post if you view it as a list of frequently asked questions about effective altruism when interacting with people who are new to the concept and a list of potential good answers to those questions â including that sometimes the answer is to just let it go. (If someone is at college just to party, just say ârock onâ.)
But thereâs a fine line between effective persuasion and manipulation. Iâm uncomfortable with this:
If I were a passer-by who stopped at a table to talk to someone and they said this to me, I would internally think, âOh, so youâre trying to work me.â
Back when I tabled for EA stuff, my approach to questions like this was to be completely honest. If my honest thought was, âYeah, I donât know, maybe weâre doing it all wrong,â then I would say that.
I donât like viewing people as a tool to achieve my ends â as if I know better than them and my job in life is to tell them what to do.
And I think a lot of people are savvy enough to tell when youâre working them and recoil at being treated like your tool.
If you want people to be vulnerable and put themselves on the line, youâve got to be vulnerable and put yourself on the line as well. Youâve got to tell the truth. Youâve got be willing to say, âI donât know.â
Do you want to be treated like a tool? Was being treated like a tool what put you in this seat, talking to passers-by at this table? Why would you think anyone else would be any different? Why not appeal to whatâs in them thatâs the same as whatâs in you that drew you to effective altruism?
When I was an organizer at my universityâs EA group, I was once on a Skype call with someone whose job it was to provide resources and advice to student EA groups. I think he was at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) â this would have been in 2015 or 2016 â but I donât remember for sure.
This was a truly chilling experience because this person advocated what I saw then and still see now as unethical manipulation tactics. He advised us â the group organizers â to encourage other students to tie their sense of self-esteem or self-worth to how committed they were to effective altruism or how much they contributed to the cause.
This person from CEA or whatever the organization was also said something like, âif weâre successful, effective altruism will solve all the worldâs problems in priority sequenceâ. That and the manipulation advice made me think, âOh, this guyâs crazy.â
I recently read about a psychology study about persuading people to eat animal organs during World War II. During WWII, there was a shortage of meat, but animalsâ organs were being thrown away, despite being edible. A psychologist (Kurt Lewin) wanted to try two different ways of convincing women to cook with animal organs and feed them to their families.
The first way was to devise a pitch to the women designed to be persuasive, designed to convince them. This is from the position of, âI figured out whatâs right, now let me figure out what to say to you to make you do whatâs right.â
The second way was to pose the situation to the women as the studyâs designers themselves thought of it. This is from the position of, âIâm treating you as an equal collaborator on solving this problem, Iâm respecting your intellect, and Iâm respecting your autonomy.â
Five times more women who were treated in the second way cooked with organs, 52% of the group vs. 10%.
Among women who had never cooked with organs before, none of them cooked with organs after being treated the first way. 29% of the women who had never cooked with organs before did so for the first time after being treated the second way.
You can read more about this study here. (There might be different ways to interpret which factors in this experiment were important, but Kurt Lewin himself advocated the view that if you want things to change, get people involved.)
This isnât just about whatâs most effective at persuasion, as if persuasion is the end goal and the only thing that matters. Treating people as intellectual equals also gives them the opportunity to teach you that youâre wrong. And you might be wrong. Wouldnât you rather know?
Iâm sad to hear that youâd feel manipulated by my reply to the QALY-doubting response, but Iâm very happy and thankful to get the feedback! We do want to show that EA has some useful tools and conclusions, while also being honest and open about whatâs still being worked on. Iâll take this to heart.
I feel the need to clarify that none of these responses are meant to be âsales-yâ or to trick people into joining a movement that doesnât align with their values. My reply was more based on the ideas that we need more skeptics. If they have epistemic (as opposed to ethical) objections, I think itâs particularly important to signal that theyâre invited. My condolences for having gotten such awful advice from whatever organization it was, but thatâs not how we do things at EA Lund.