I think in general the issue with EA political interventions is that (a) it’s very difficult to predict what political interventions are desirable and (b) even conditional on the correct prediction that a particular intervention is desirable, it’s very difficult to persuade people.
For point (a), I’ll play devil’s advocate and try to think of some reasons that the approach you outlined could be the wrong one even though I tend to agree with it.
From a game theoretic perspective, it’s important to present a credible threat of retaliation, which emotion can play a role in. Retaliating against defectors even when it hurts you personally could be seen as equivalent to one-boxing in Newcomb’s Problem: you would like to be the kind of person who does it even if in individual instances you may lose from it. To be more concrete, if the West’s response to terrorism is too thoughtful and measured, that sends a signal to the authoritarian governments of other world powers (Russia, China, Iran) that they will get a thoughtful, measured response to their own acts of aggression, rather than credible retaliation.
It seems plausible that isolating all the young Muslims with latent radical tendencies in a single geographical area (as opposed to having them spread evenly throughout the world’s Muslim communities) is a good thing. See this and this for more.
The CIA is full of professionals who collect intelligence and analyze these issues full time. Despite this, they made the wrong call in Iraq, and it was a disaster. If CIA analysts can screw up doing this as their full-time job, you can certainly screw up from your armchair. Specialization of labor is a thing.
Analyzing issues full time while working for an EA organization is one thing, but I’m not persuaded that EAs have the ability to decide issues more effectively from their armchairs than other people.
For point (b) I’ll note that you don’t seem to have persuaded that many of the commenters on your article.
Thanks for playing a devil’s advocate, really helpful to have someone do that!
For point A:
I agree on the need to represent a credible threat. However, being seen as irrational and manipulated easily by terrorist attacks is not really a credible threat. Especially if doing so plays into an enemy’s hands.
Clearly, these young Muslims are then going out into the broader world, including into Paris, and there’s not really a good way to stop them.
For point B:
The commenters do not represent the actual readers. The readers of this newspaper live in a liberal-leaning city, Cleveland. If you look through the actual comments, you will see it’s the same people making the same criticism again and again. It’s a group of activists who go on newspaper sites around the country and try to persuade readers to share their opinions. I’ve been getting positive emails from actual readers for the last few days. Also, other places have been interested in republishing the op-ed, such as The Huffington Post, etc.
I’m not a typical EA in analyzing political issues, actually. I’m a historian, and have quite a bit of expertise in political analysis. This is the only reason I was able to get this publication into the paper, namely my credibility as an expert.
I’m still curious about your response to the question of QALYs and money.
I think in general the issue with EA political interventions is that (a) it’s very difficult to predict what political interventions are desirable and (b) even conditional on the correct prediction that a particular intervention is desirable, it’s very difficult to persuade people.
For point (a), I’ll play devil’s advocate and try to think of some reasons that the approach you outlined could be the wrong one even though I tend to agree with it.
From a game theoretic perspective, it’s important to present a credible threat of retaliation, which emotion can play a role in. Retaliating against defectors even when it hurts you personally could be seen as equivalent to one-boxing in Newcomb’s Problem: you would like to be the kind of person who does it even if in individual instances you may lose from it. To be more concrete, if the West’s response to terrorism is too thoughtful and measured, that sends a signal to the authoritarian governments of other world powers (Russia, China, Iran) that they will get a thoughtful, measured response to their own acts of aggression, rather than credible retaliation.
It seems plausible that isolating all the young Muslims with latent radical tendencies in a single geographical area (as opposed to having them spread evenly throughout the world’s Muslim communities) is a good thing. See this and this for more.
The CIA is full of professionals who collect intelligence and analyze these issues full time. Despite this, they made the wrong call in Iraq, and it was a disaster. If CIA analysts can screw up doing this as their full-time job, you can certainly screw up from your armchair. Specialization of labor is a thing.
Analyzing issues full time while working for an EA organization is one thing, but I’m not persuaded that EAs have the ability to decide issues more effectively from their armchairs than other people.
For point (b) I’ll note that you don’t seem to have persuaded that many of the commenters on your article.
Thanks for playing a devil’s advocate, really helpful to have someone do that!
For point A:
I agree on the need to represent a credible threat. However, being seen as irrational and manipulated easily by terrorist attacks is not really a credible threat. Especially if doing so plays into an enemy’s hands.
Clearly, these young Muslims are then going out into the broader world, including into Paris, and there’s not really a good way to stop them.
For point B:
The commenters do not represent the actual readers. The readers of this newspaper live in a liberal-leaning city, Cleveland. If you look through the actual comments, you will see it’s the same people making the same criticism again and again. It’s a group of activists who go on newspaper sites around the country and try to persuade readers to share their opinions. I’ve been getting positive emails from actual readers for the last few days. Also, other places have been interested in republishing the op-ed, such as The Huffington Post, etc.
I’m not a typical EA in analyzing political issues, actually. I’m a historian, and have quite a bit of expertise in political analysis. This is the only reason I was able to get this publication into the paper, namely my credibility as an expert.
I’m still curious about your response to the question of QALYs and money.