This argument is extraordinarily difficult to follow because it doesn’t appear to be written very legibly. It really needs several more passes, as I can barely follow what the point is meant to be. The argument seems to be something like “Equality is comprised of multiple things, and EA’s only focus on one (equality of socioeconomic opportunity) which is inconsistent with the full meaning of equality.” Is this right?
You also mention this in the first paragraph: “Many effective altruists would prefer to learn that someone is poor, than to be robbed by someone who is poor. The revealed preference in this thought experiment is that equality of authority is valued over socioeconomic equality.”
...What? This makes absolutely no sense. There is no abuse of authority involved in robbing someone, because the thief does not have authority to begin with. If you believe that me robbing you is an example of “inequality of authority”, because I have the ability to take something from you and you can’t stop me because I have a gun and you don’t, then...I don’t really understand the point the rest of the post is making at all. Do you think EA’s are okay with people robbing each other? If not, then clearly EA’s do care about “inequality of authority” by your definition of the term, and so does almost everyone, so it isn’t clear to me what the problem actually is that you’re pointing out.
This definitely needs more editing. Most of the post is not coherent enough for me to follow the argument in detail. The one part of the post I think I understand (the first paragraph) appears so blatantly wrong that I feel like I must be misunderstanding it too.
The initial sentences play on the word “authority”. Barracuda implies that authority is a name for those with resources used in EA causes, that EA folks have resources, and that their elevated authority is something they prefer to keep while they will share their wealth only. Barracuda states that EA efforts are not intended to further causes associated with social justice or democracy, but rather socioeconomic equality or health only.
Basically, I take the criticism to be that EA depends on, or does not address or correct, political inequality.
This argument is extraordinarily difficult to follow because it doesn’t appear to be written very legibly. It really needs several more passes, as I can barely follow what the point is meant to be. The argument seems to be something like “Equality is comprised of multiple things, and EA’s only focus on one (equality of socioeconomic opportunity) which is inconsistent with the full meaning of equality.” Is this right?
You also mention this in the first paragraph: “Many effective altruists would prefer to learn that someone is poor, than to be robbed by someone who is poor. The revealed preference in this thought experiment is that equality of authority is valued over socioeconomic equality.”
...What? This makes absolutely no sense. There is no abuse of authority involved in robbing someone, because the thief does not have authority to begin with. If you believe that me robbing you is an example of “inequality of authority”, because I have the ability to take something from you and you can’t stop me because I have a gun and you don’t, then...I don’t really understand the point the rest of the post is making at all. Do you think EA’s are okay with people robbing each other? If not, then clearly EA’s do care about “inequality of authority” by your definition of the term, and so does almost everyone, so it isn’t clear to me what the problem actually is that you’re pointing out.
This definitely needs more editing. Most of the post is not coherent enough for me to follow the argument in detail. The one part of the post I think I understand (the first paragraph) appears so blatantly wrong that I feel like I must be misunderstanding it too.
The initial sentences play on the word “authority”. Barracuda implies that authority is a name for those with resources used in EA causes, that EA folks have resources, and that their elevated authority is something they prefer to keep while they will share their wealth only. Barracuda states that EA efforts are not intended to further causes associated with social justice or democracy, but rather socioeconomic equality or health only.
Basically, I take the criticism to be that EA depends on, or does not address or correct, political inequality.