I actually thought Amia Srinivasan’s article was quite thoughtful and (together with Dylan Matthew’s criticism) echo some of my own concerns as a beginner/fringe EA.
How do we broaden the movement? As a brown, female, immigrant 40-something mid-career professional who is not a banker or philosopher and has a family (including aging parents who rely on us), math literate but not interested in the detailed calculations that populate the EA pages I don’t feel like there are other EAs who share my profile.
How do we work beyond individual donations to talk about systemic change or show how the current donations/recommendations and effective giving actually help reduce inequality in today’s world? What other movements should we be supporting (maybe we are and I am just unaware of this) - immigration reform, corporate tax havens, reparations to colonial countries etc. Should we even be looking at this, or do they lose out in the trade-off?
I think there are two parts to EA—giving a significant portion of your income AND ensuring it goes to effective charities. So, for example, donating $100 million of your $200 million income alone may not count as effective altruism. But do we want to focus on the former or latter i.e. get everyone giving 10% or more of their income (and giving it, say, to UNICEF) or giving even a small proportion of their income to effective charities. As a marketing professional, this is the classic penetration vs. frequency argument- do you get volume by having everyone consume your product vs. a small but loyal group consume it more frequently. At least in the consumer packaged goods industry where I work, you first need penetration for scale. So, I would urge us to look at getting everyone on board with the idea, donating even 1-2% of their income but donate it effectively.
How do you combine pure reason with emotion. It is not helpful for most people to shift everything from say, giving a dollar to the homeless person on the street into charities. I find that I tend to give more to effective altruism charities when i give to the person on the street as well (though, living in New York city, arguably, they don’t need it as much). In this context, Adam Grant’s book “Givers and Takers” (not about charity) is very helpful. He calls it an “otherish” giving strategy—that replenishes the self as well as the givers. The key idea is to if you give something in concrete, tangible terms (e.g. volunteer with some students to see their scores go up) that energizes you to give to much more uphill, abstract concepts (like EA). I think this could be an interesting idea—may dilute the overall idea of EA but would help in the long run.
I actually thought Amia Srinivasan’s article was quite thoughtful and (together with Dylan Matthew’s criticism) echo some of my own concerns as a beginner/fringe EA.
How do we broaden the movement? As a brown, female, immigrant 40-something mid-career professional who is not a banker or philosopher and has a family (including aging parents who rely on us), math literate but not interested in the detailed calculations that populate the EA pages I don’t feel like there are other EAs who share my profile.
How do we work beyond individual donations to talk about systemic change or show how the current donations/recommendations and effective giving actually help reduce inequality in today’s world? What other movements should we be supporting (maybe we are and I am just unaware of this) - immigration reform, corporate tax havens, reparations to colonial countries etc. Should we even be looking at this, or do they lose out in the trade-off?
I think there are two parts to EA—giving a significant portion of your income AND ensuring it goes to effective charities. So, for example, donating $100 million of your $200 million income alone may not count as effective altruism. But do we want to focus on the former or latter i.e. get everyone giving 10% or more of their income (and giving it, say, to UNICEF) or giving even a small proportion of their income to effective charities. As a marketing professional, this is the classic penetration vs. frequency argument- do you get volume by having everyone consume your product vs. a small but loyal group consume it more frequently. At least in the consumer packaged goods industry where I work, you first need penetration for scale. So, I would urge us to look at getting everyone on board with the idea, donating even 1-2% of their income but donate it effectively.
How do you combine pure reason with emotion. It is not helpful for most people to shift everything from say, giving a dollar to the homeless person on the street into charities. I find that I tend to give more to effective altruism charities when i give to the person on the street as well (though, living in New York city, arguably, they don’t need it as much). In this context, Adam Grant’s book “Givers and Takers” (not about charity) is very helpful. He calls it an “otherish” giving strategy—that replenishes the self as well as the givers. The key idea is to if you give something in concrete, tangible terms (e.g. volunteer with some students to see their scores go up) that energizes you to give to much more uphill, abstract concepts (like EA). I think this could be an interesting idea—may dilute the overall idea of EA but would help in the long run.