Thanks for this response! I don’t want to go too deep on the traditional aid sector, being still in it and all, but I do think they could do with a lot more thinking about real effectiveness. Or even just to occasionally step back, and think ‘what are we trying to do here?’ I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written, except to wonder if it’s even possible to have non-global communities anymore, and if even small scale communities succumb to the same dynamics.
Just when an idea becomes popular it becomes a community, and the community imports the social dynamics. I suppose if I had to say what I would envision for something EA-like is in line with a what you said about conventional wisdom – a kind of invisible force that no one really identifies with, but nudges decisions in a better direction. To some extent I wonder if game theory and microeconomics have maybe achieved this – people seem to subconsciously think a lot more in terms of cost/benefit than they did 20 years ago. But whenever an online community becomes a ‘thing’, I really feel like those social communities overwhelm – and my experience living in Berlin suggests to me that even the tiniest subcultures develop the same dynamics.
Speaking of geopolitics and social reality, do you think EA grapples with that well? In my experience one of the most crucial elements of effectiveness for aid projects has been good buy-in from the local government and community, which can be a messy, political and extremely tedious process, and I’m lucky enough to have an employer that takes the time. What’s the EA opinion on ‘do something suboptimal because otherwise one department of a ministry will hate you and your whole project is screwed’?
Thanks for this response! I don’t want to go too deep on the traditional aid sector, being still in it and all, but I do think they could do with a lot more thinking about real effectiveness. Or even just to occasionally step back, and think ‘what are we trying to do here?’ I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written, except to wonder if it’s even possible to have non-global communities anymore, and if even small scale communities succumb to the same dynamics.
Just when an idea becomes popular it becomes a community, and the community imports the social dynamics. I suppose if I had to say what I would envision for something EA-like is in line with a what you said about conventional wisdom – a kind of invisible force that no one really identifies with, but nudges decisions in a better direction. To some extent I wonder if game theory and microeconomics have maybe achieved this – people seem to subconsciously think a lot more in terms of cost/benefit than they did 20 years ago. But whenever an online community becomes a ‘thing’, I really feel like those social communities overwhelm – and my experience living in Berlin suggests to me that even the tiniest subcultures develop the same dynamics.
Speaking of geopolitics and social reality, do you think EA grapples with that well? In my experience one of the most crucial elements of effectiveness for aid projects has been good buy-in from the local government and community, which can be a messy, political and extremely tedious process, and I’m lucky enough to have an employer that takes the time. What’s the EA opinion on ‘do something suboptimal because otherwise one department of a ministry will hate you and your whole project is screwed’?