Great post! To address Rich-Person Morality, I wonder if it would make sense to support political movements to advocate for increased foreign aid for effective programs in the developing world. Government agencies like USAID and DFID are already some of the largest donors to many effective programs (e.g. malaria control and deworming). Yet at the same time, the USAID budget is less than one percent of federal budget, so there seems like there is room to give more.
One nice thing about this type of advocacy is that it would be inclusive of people of all income levels, since we can all vote for candidates who would support increasing the foreign aid budget for effective programs.
We could also advocate for less restrictive immigration laws and government policies to support reduced meat consumption. We could even create a “EA” legislative scorecard to endorse candidates running for public office.
[Update: edited post to reflect Owen’s feedback that we should be supporting existing efforts]
Why ‘build a political movement within EA’, rather than just effectively supporting existing projects working towards these goals? This gave me the “smug and arrogant” impression the opening post eloquently warned against.
Yes thanks for pointing that out. It might be best to support an existing project like ONE Campaign. No need to reinvent the wheel. I updated the original comment.
I agree. I think more EAs need to specialise into very specific areas like foreign policy, politics and health (and many others) to work on such issues. I’m concerned that EAs are a society of generalists!
Great post! To address Rich-Person Morality, I wonder if it would make sense to support political movements to advocate for increased foreign aid for effective programs in the developing world. Government agencies like USAID and DFID are already some of the largest donors to many effective programs (e.g. malaria control and deworming). Yet at the same time, the USAID budget is less than one percent of federal budget, so there seems like there is room to give more.
One nice thing about this type of advocacy is that it would be inclusive of people of all income levels, since we can all vote for candidates who would support increasing the foreign aid budget for effective programs.
Examples of this type of advocacy include the ONE Campaign and the END7 campaign.
We could also advocate for less restrictive immigration laws and government policies to support reduced meat consumption. We could even create a “EA” legislative scorecard to endorse candidates running for public office.
[Update: edited post to reflect Owen’s feedback that we should be supporting existing efforts]
Why ‘build a political movement within EA’, rather than just effectively supporting existing projects working towards these goals? This gave me the “smug and arrogant” impression the opening post eloquently warned against.
Yes thanks for pointing that out. It might be best to support an existing project like ONE Campaign. No need to reinvent the wheel. I updated the original comment.
I agree. I think more EAs need to specialise into very specific areas like foreign policy, politics and health (and many others) to work on such issues. I’m concerned that EAs are a society of generalists!