Partisanship and tribalism likely explain a majority of why it consumes so much of the public attention
My guess is that women who wish to have the option of having an abortion and not live with the stresses of feeling like they have no choice but to have a child they don’t want will probably disagree that they feel strongly about it because of “tribalism”.
Instead of distancing yourself from EA, what’s preventing you from advocating for more “explicit countervailing frameworks prioritizing the rights and needs of already existing people?”
One plausible reason is that this is not something they actually want to spend their time on.
Lets say you want to spend your time in the EA community discussing whether or not abortion is morally acceptable on longtermist grounds. But in the EA community, you frequently hear discussions around whether or not [insert your ethnicity here] can actually be capable of high quality intellectual contributions, or potentially whether people like you even deserve basic human rights!
You think this is clearly wrong by any moral framework you deem acceptable, and don’t particularly enjoy discussing this (because you want to focus on the more important discussion of whether abortion is morally acceptable or not), and find it surprising that so many people in this otherwise like-minded community have somehow come to a conclusion that you feel is so unintuitive and morally unacceptable, and have done so under what you believe to be the views of the community (or at least parts of it). You think to yourself, “Maybe these people aren’t as like-minded as I thought they were, maybe we don’t quite share the same values.” And when you express your dissatisfaction and desire to distance yourself, one of the people who were vocally against [your people]’s rights say, “Well, why don’t you stay in the community so you can make a case for your position and argue for it?”
I’m not claiming at all that this is the reason for lastmistborn’s distancing from the EA community, but just illustrating one plausible reason, mainly to indicate that they should have no obligation or expectation placed on them to stay, nor to argue against views they find disturbing before they choose to distance themselves (I recognise you’re not explicitly doing this!). But basically the costs of engagement here are asymmetrical because it’s much less (e.g. emotionally) costly for people to come up with a discussion point that is perceived to be against someone else’s rights than for those who perceive to have their rights challenged to engage and justify why they think they deserve this right.
Yes, this seems accurate. I’ve spent some time in liberal/left spaces talking about EA with folks who highly prioritize pro-choice policy in their politics (say that 5 times fast!). If they viewed OP’s arguments as being roughly synonymous with EA as a whole (it’s not, but that doesn’t mean the impression couldn’t exist) it would be totally understandable, I think, for them to dismiss the rest of EA. “This community doesn’t share my values,” they might say, as bruce alludes to.
Personally, I think EA is very, very compatible with mainstream left-of-center liberalism/leftism, and, in my view, a pro-choice ethic is probably a very significant part of that. Not to say that OP’s view is indefensible; it’s just that I think there is a tension between their stated arguments and the broader values and politics that are the foundation of most EA’s actually-existing political views.
Tentatively, I’m imagining there are a number of EAs who identify as longtermist first, and, to them, OP’s argument would have some purchase. Then there’s a second group who may find longtermism interesting, but they still have other commitments that they’re prioritizing (liberalism, rights, leftism, social justice, global health, and so on), and they’re unlikely to forsake those views in favor of a longtermist proposal that is, in a sense, pretty radical. I suspect the second group is larger than the first, but the impression that the former group is central to EA could lead to people viewing EA as not worth the time.
the impression that the former group is central to EA could lead to people viewing EA as not worth the time.
You’re completely right that EA should strive to be a big tent and alienate as few people as possible. Do you think it’s possible that the impression that EA is “very, very compatible with mainstream left-of-center liberalism/leftism” could contribute to less than 1% of EAs identifying as politically “right”?
Given this information, how do you think we should prioritize between appeals to one political group which could alienate a different political group?
(Note that I’m not arguing here that this particular post helps avoid alienating potential EAs on net—just that there are other groups we should consider too when thinking about what EA can do to help more people feel we’re compatible with their values.)
My guess is that women who wish to have the option of having an abortion and not live with the stresses of feeling like they have no choice but to have a child they don’t want will probably disagree that they feel strongly about it because of “tribalism”.
One plausible reason is that this is not something they actually want to spend their time on.
Lets say you want to spend your time in the EA community discussing whether or not abortion is morally acceptable on longtermist grounds. But in the EA community, you frequently hear discussions around whether or not [insert your ethnicity here] can actually be capable of high quality intellectual contributions, or potentially whether people like you even deserve basic human rights!
You think this is clearly wrong by any moral framework you deem acceptable, and don’t particularly enjoy discussing this (because you want to focus on the more important discussion of whether abortion is morally acceptable or not), and find it surprising that so many people in this otherwise like-minded community have somehow come to a conclusion that you feel is so unintuitive and morally unacceptable, and have done so under what you believe to be the views of the community (or at least parts of it). You think to yourself, “Maybe these people aren’t as like-minded as I thought they were, maybe we don’t quite share the same values.” And when you express your dissatisfaction and desire to distance yourself, one of the people who were vocally against [your people]’s rights say, “Well, why don’t you stay in the community so you can make a case for your position and argue for it?”
I’m not claiming at all that this is the reason for lastmistborn’s distancing from the EA community, but just illustrating one plausible reason, mainly to indicate that they should have no obligation or expectation placed on them to stay, nor to argue against views they find disturbing before they choose to distance themselves (I recognise you’re not explicitly doing this!). But basically the costs of engagement here are asymmetrical because it’s much less (e.g. emotionally) costly for people to come up with a discussion point that is perceived to be against someone else’s rights than for those who perceive to have their rights challenged to engage and justify why they think they deserve this right.
Yes, this seems accurate. I’ve spent some time in liberal/left spaces talking about EA with folks who highly prioritize pro-choice policy in their politics (say that 5 times fast!). If they viewed OP’s arguments as being roughly synonymous with EA as a whole (it’s not, but that doesn’t mean the impression couldn’t exist) it would be totally understandable, I think, for them to dismiss the rest of EA. “This community doesn’t share my values,” they might say, as bruce alludes to.
Personally, I think EA is very, very compatible with mainstream left-of-center liberalism/leftism, and, in my view, a pro-choice ethic is probably a very significant part of that. Not to say that OP’s view is indefensible; it’s just that I think there is a tension between their stated arguments and the broader values and politics that are the foundation of most EA’s actually-existing political views.
Tentatively, I’m imagining there are a number of EAs who identify as longtermist first, and, to them, OP’s argument would have some purchase. Then there’s a second group who may find longtermism interesting, but they still have other commitments that they’re prioritizing (liberalism, rights, leftism, social justice, global health, and so on), and they’re unlikely to forsake those views in favor of a longtermist proposal that is, in a sense, pretty radical. I suspect the second group is larger than the first, but the impression that the former group is central to EA could lead to people viewing EA as not worth the time.
You’re completely right that EA should strive to be a big tent and alienate as few people as possible. Do you think it’s possible that the impression that EA is “very, very compatible with mainstream left-of-center liberalism/leftism” could contribute to less than 1% of EAs identifying as politically “right”?
(source)
Given this information, how do you think we should prioritize between appeals to one political group which could alienate a different political group?
(Note that I’m not arguing here that this particular post helps avoid alienating potential EAs on net—just that there are other groups we should consider too when thinking about what EA can do to help more people feel we’re compatible with their values.)
This pretty much hits the nail on the head, thank you for articulating it so well.