(For relevant background, I spent ~all of my undergraduate career heavily involved in social justice before discovering EA in law school and then switching primarily to EA)
A bunch of high-level thoughts:
EA is overall the better ideology/movement due to higher-quality reasoning, prioritization, embrace of economics, and explicit welfarism.
There is probably lots of potential for useful alliances between EAs and SJ people on poverty and animal welfare issues, but I think certain SJ beliefs and practices unfortunately frustrate these. Having EAs who can communicate EA ideas to SJ audiences to form these alliances is both valuable and, in my experience, possible.
SJ has captured a huge amount of well-educated people who want to do good in the world. From a strategic perspective, this is both a problem and an opportunity. It is a problem because, in my on-campus experience, there is somewhat strong lock-in to an ideology after undergrad, after which point it is hard to “convert” people or persuade them to act outside their ideology. Thus, the prominence of SJ on colleges frustrates the work of post-college EA movement-building/ -growth. However, I think we have a much more compelling message, ideology, and community, and with sustained movement growth at colleges could represent a plausible alternative attractive worldview to sell to undergrads who are interested in improving the world but also identify the same weaknesses in SJ that I did.
SJ has a lot of approximately true insights into ways that social dynamics can cause harm, but many of them are not compelling EA causes.
EA should probably do a better job taking seriously and leftist critiques of Western philanthropy in the Global South, and have better responses to them than citing GiveWell cost-effectiveness analyses. (To be clear, I think many people do this; it should just be a salient talking point because it’s the most common objection I heard.)
Overall, I would recommend a soft embrace of SJ, which is nothing more than accepting the valid parts of the ideology while also retaining firm cause prioritization. We should also use SJ insights to build a larger, more inclusive movement. We should do all of this while also being careful not to alienate moderates and conservatives who are sympathetic to EA. Again, in my experience at Harvard, I had success communicating to both groups—I sold some very progressive friends on EA while also recruiting some very conservative donors. Cause prioritization is our strength in this sense, since the issues most likely to cause ideological conflicts are also probably not major causes by mainstream EA analysis.
I’ve been trying to figure out what I find a little uncomfortable about 1-3, as someone who also has links to both communities. I think it’s that I personally find it more productive to think about both as frameworks/bodies of work + associated communities, more so than movements, where it feels here like these are being described as tribes (one is presented as overall better than the other; they are presented as competing for talent; there should be alliances). I acknowledge however, that in both EA/SJ, there are definitely many who see these more in the movement/tribe sense.
Through my framing, I find it easier to imagine the kinds of constructive engagements I would personally like to see—e.g. people primarily thinking through lens A adopting valuable insights and methodologies from lens B (captured nicely in your point 4). But I think this comes back to the oft-debated question (in both EA and SJ) of whether EA/SJ is (a) a movement/tribe or (b) a set of ideas/frameworks/body of knowledge. I apologise if I’m misrepresenting any views, or presenting distinctions overly strongly; I’m trying to put my finger on what might be a somewhat subtle distinction, but one which I think is important in terms of how engagement happens.
On the whole I agree with the message that engaging constructively, embracing the most valuable and relevant insights, and creating a larger, more inclusive community is very desirable.
On a technical note (maybe outside the context of this conversation or comparing EA/SJ) and a slight tangent, I think calling EA and SJ movements is useful and informative if you’re level of discourse is thinking about broad-level EA movement building. I know the phrase movement has a lot of connotations in common discourse, but I think at it’s core a movement is a group of people achieving goals through collective action.
These groups of people are often tribes, and tribal ties motivates movement membership but they are distinct things.
The value of this categorization:
EA is a much more consolidated, controlled and purposeful movement than SJ. SJ is more diffuse, lacks centralization but is quite recognizable in terms of topics and kinds of discourse.
Given this diversity, appeals to broad SJ movement tend to reduce complexity of arguments (low fidelity models) that wouldn’t work well with EA high fidelity models. So I think it’s useful to know this to know why we engaging with SJ on a movement level is not the ideal situation. So on that high level thinking it’s probably useful to think about movements to get a big picture of the situation.
Of course, SJ (and EA) are not only movements. They are also communities, bodies of knowledge, networks etc. as you mention. These aspects feed into the structure of the movement in important ways. If your level of discourse is different (i.e. thinking about specific cases for collaboration or comparing the frameworks used by the two movements) then thinking on this level is useful.
I agree that SJ is more diffuse and less central—I think this is one of the reasons thinking of it in terms of a movement that one might ally with is a little unnatural to me. I also agree that EA is more centralised and purposeful.
Your point that about what level of discourse suggests what kind of engagement is also a good one. I think this also links to the issue that (in my view) it’s in the nature of EA that there’s a ‘thick’ and a ‘thin’ version of EA in terms of the people involved. Here ‘thick’ is a movement of people who self-identify as EA and see themselves as part a strong social and intellectual community, and who are influenced by movement leaders and shapers.
Then there’s a ‘thin’ version that includes people who might do one or multiple of the following (a) work in EA-endorsed cause areas with EA-compatible approaches (b) find EA frameworks and literature useful to draw on (among other frameworks) (c) are generally supportive of or friendly towards some or most of the goals of EA, without necessarily making EA a core part of their identity or seeing themselves as being part of a movement. With so many people who interact with EA working primarily in cause areas rather than ‘central movement’ EA per se, my sense is this ‘thin’ EA or EA-adjacent set of people is reasonably large.
It might make perfect sense for ‘thick EA’ leaders to think of EA vs SJ in terms of movements, alliances, and competition for talent. While at the same time, this might be a less intuitive and more uncomfortable way for ‘thin EA’ folk to see the interaction being described and playing out. While I don’t have answers, I think it’s worth being mindful that there may be some tension there.
Thanks all! This is a good, useful discussion. I wanted to clarify slightly but what I mean when I say EA is the “better” ideology. Mainly, I mean that EA is better at guiding my actions in a way that augments my ethical impact much more than SJ does. They’re primarily rivalrous only insofar as I can only make a limited number of ethical deliberations per day, and EA considerations more strongly optimize for impact than SJ considerations.
“There are definitely many who see these more in the movement/tribe sense”—For modern social justice this tends to focus on who is a good or bad person, while for EA this tends to focus more on who to trust. (There’s a less dominant strand of thought within social justice that says we shouldn’t blame individuals for systematic issues, but it’s relatively rare). EA makes some efforts towards being anti-tribal, while social justice is less worried about the downsides of being tribal.
Regarding point 3): I don’t think EA necessarily has a more compelling ideology. One of the big differences I see between the two movements is that SJ is an extremely inclusive movement (basically by definition) when it comes to participation within the movemrnt: who can be a part of the movement, make a difference, and contribute even if the application of this principle may be flawed.
This seems pretty different from EA, and depending on your entry point to EA could put people off and I’m not quite sure how to
reconcile that.
Do you see this as an issue (and on what scale)? Do you have any sense of how to reconcile this issue?
Yeah, EA is likely less compelling when this is defined as feeling motivating/interesting to the average person at the moment, although it is hard to judge since EA hasn’t been around for anywhere near as long. Nonetheless, many of the issues EAs care about seem way too weird for the average person, then again if you look at feminism, a lot of the ideas were only ever present in an overly academic form. Part of the reason why they are so influential now is that they have filtered down into the general population in a simpler form (such as “girl power”, “feeling good, rationality bad”). Plus social justice is more likely to benefit the people supporting it in the here and now than EA which focuses more on other countries, other species and other times which is always a tough sell.
SJ is an extremely inclusive movement (basically by definition)
I’m generally wary of argument by definition. Indeed, SJ is very inclusive to members of a racial minority or those who are LGBTI, but is very much not when it comes to ideological diversity. And some strands can be very unwelcoming to members of majorities. So it’s much more complex than that.
I phrased that poorly—I added the bit even if the principle is not applied perfectly to cover what you mentioned but I think the more accurate statement would be that one of SJ’s big appeals is that it states to be inclusive.
I do basically think that EA could learn a lot of things from SJ in terms of being an inclusive movement. I think it’s possible that there’s a lot of value to be had (in EA terms) in continuing to increase the inclusivity of EA.
I agree that part of the issue is who feels empowered to make a difference. Part of this is because SJ, in my view, often focuses on things that are not very marginally impactful, but to which many people can contribute. However, I am very excited about recent efforts within the EA community to support a variety of career paths and routes to impact beyond the main ones identified by main EA orgs.
Thanks for listing this as one of your five topics of interest and thanks to everyone for insightful comments.
I do basically think that EA could learn a lot of things from SJ in terms of being an inclusive movement.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Beyond movement building & inclusivity, I’d be curious to hear about other domains where you think that EA could learn from the social justice movement/philosophy? E.g., in terms of the methodologies and academic disciplines that the respective movements tend to rely on, epistemic norms, ethical frameworks, etc.
Beyond movement building & inclusivity, I think it makes sense for EA as a movement to keep their current approach because it’s been working pretty well IMO.
I think the thing EAs as people (with a worldview that includes things beyond EA) might want to consider—and which SJ could inform—is the demands that historical injustices of, e.g., colonialism, racism, etc. make on us. I think those demands are plausibly quite large and failure to satisfy them could constitute a ongoing moral catastrophe. Since they’re not welfarist, they’re outside the scope of EA as it currently exists. But for moral uncertainty reasons I think many people should think about them.
(For relevant background, I spent ~all of my undergraduate career heavily involved in social justice before discovering EA in law school and then switching primarily to EA)
A bunch of high-level thoughts:
EA is overall the better ideology/movement due to higher-quality reasoning, prioritization, embrace of economics, and explicit welfarism.
There is probably lots of potential for useful alliances between EAs and SJ people on poverty and animal welfare issues, but I think certain SJ beliefs and practices unfortunately frustrate these. Having EAs who can communicate EA ideas to SJ audiences to form these alliances is both valuable and, in my experience, possible.
SJ has captured a huge amount of well-educated people who want to do good in the world. From a strategic perspective, this is both a problem and an opportunity. It is a problem because, in my on-campus experience, there is somewhat strong lock-in to an ideology after undergrad, after which point it is hard to “convert” people or persuade them to act outside their ideology. Thus, the prominence of SJ on colleges frustrates the work of post-college EA movement-building/ -growth. However, I think we have a much more compelling message, ideology, and community, and with sustained movement growth at colleges could represent a plausible alternative attractive worldview to sell to undergrads who are interested in improving the world but also identify the same weaknesses in SJ that I did.
SJ has a lot of approximately true insights into ways that social dynamics can cause harm, but many of them are not compelling EA causes.
EA should probably do a better job taking seriously and leftist critiques of Western philanthropy in the Global South, and have better responses to them than citing GiveWell cost-effectiveness analyses. (To be clear, I think many people do this; it should just be a salient talking point because it’s the most common objection I heard.)
Overall, I would recommend a soft embrace of SJ, which is nothing more than accepting the valid parts of the ideology while also retaining firm cause prioritization. We should also use SJ insights to build a larger, more inclusive movement. We should do all of this while also being careful not to alienate moderates and conservatives who are sympathetic to EA. Again, in my experience at Harvard, I had success communicating to both groups—I sold some very progressive friends on EA while also recruiting some very conservative donors. Cause prioritization is our strength in this sense, since the issues most likely to cause ideological conflicts are also probably not major causes by mainstream EA analysis.
I’ve been trying to figure out what I find a little uncomfortable about 1-3, as someone who also has links to both communities. I think it’s that I personally find it more productive to think about both as frameworks/bodies of work + associated communities, more so than movements, where it feels here like these are being described as tribes (one is presented as overall better than the other; they are presented as competing for talent; there should be alliances). I acknowledge however, that in both EA/SJ, there are definitely many who see these more in the movement/tribe sense.
Through my framing, I find it easier to imagine the kinds of constructive engagements I would personally like to see—e.g. people primarily thinking through lens A adopting valuable insights and methodologies from lens B (captured nicely in your point 4). But I think this comes back to the oft-debated question (in both EA and SJ) of whether EA/SJ is (a) a movement/tribe or (b) a set of ideas/frameworks/body of knowledge. I apologise if I’m misrepresenting any views, or presenting distinctions overly strongly; I’m trying to put my finger on what might be a somewhat subtle distinction, but one which I think is important in terms of how engagement happens.
On the whole I agree with the message that engaging constructively, embracing the most valuable and relevant insights, and creating a larger, more inclusive community is very desirable.
On a technical note (maybe outside the context of this conversation or comparing EA/SJ) and a slight tangent, I think calling EA and SJ movements is useful and informative if you’re level of discourse is thinking about broad-level EA movement building. I know the phrase movement has a lot of connotations in common discourse, but I think at it’s core a movement is a group of people achieving goals through collective action.
These groups of people are often tribes, and tribal ties motivates movement membership but they are distinct things.
The value of this categorization: EA is a much more consolidated, controlled and purposeful movement than SJ. SJ is more diffuse, lacks centralization but is quite recognizable in terms of topics and kinds of discourse.
Given this diversity, appeals to broad SJ movement tend to reduce complexity of arguments (low fidelity models) that wouldn’t work well with EA high fidelity models. So I think it’s useful to know this to know why we engaging with SJ on a movement level is not the ideal situation. So on that high level thinking it’s probably useful to think about movements to get a big picture of the situation.
Of course, SJ (and EA) are not only movements. They are also communities, bodies of knowledge, networks etc. as you mention. These aspects feed into the structure of the movement in important ways. If your level of discourse is different (i.e. thinking about specific cases for collaboration or comparing the frameworks used by the two movements) then thinking on this level is useful.
Thanks Vaidehi, these are very good points.
I agree that SJ is more diffuse and less central—I think this is one of the reasons thinking of it in terms of a movement that one might ally with is a little unnatural to me. I also agree that EA is more centralised and purposeful.
Your point that about what level of discourse suggests what kind of engagement is also a good one. I think this also links to the issue that (in my view) it’s in the nature of EA that there’s a ‘thick’ and a ‘thin’ version of EA in terms of the people involved. Here ‘thick’ is a movement of people who self-identify as EA and see themselves as part a strong social and intellectual community, and who are influenced by movement leaders and shapers.
Then there’s a ‘thin’ version that includes people who might do one or multiple of the following (a) work in EA-endorsed cause areas with EA-compatible approaches (b) find EA frameworks and literature useful to draw on (among other frameworks) (c) are generally supportive of or friendly towards some or most of the goals of EA, without necessarily making EA a core part of their identity or seeing themselves as being part of a movement. With so many people who interact with EA working primarily in cause areas rather than ‘central movement’ EA per se, my sense is this ‘thin’ EA or EA-adjacent set of people is reasonably large.
It might make perfect sense for ‘thick EA’ leaders to think of EA vs SJ in terms of movements, alliances, and competition for talent. While at the same time, this might be a less intuitive and more uncomfortable way for ‘thin EA’ folk to see the interaction being described and playing out. While I don’t have answers, I think it’s worth being mindful that there may be some tension there.
Thanks all! This is a good, useful discussion. I wanted to clarify slightly but what I mean when I say EA is the “better” ideology. Mainly, I mean that EA is better at guiding my actions in a way that augments my ethical impact much more than SJ does. They’re primarily rivalrous only insofar as I can only make a limited number of ethical deliberations per day, and EA considerations more strongly optimize for impact than SJ considerations.
“There are definitely many who see these more in the movement/tribe sense”—For modern social justice this tends to focus on who is a good or bad person, while for EA this tends to focus more on who to trust. (There’s a less dominant strand of thought within social justice that says we shouldn’t blame individuals for systematic issues, but it’s relatively rare). EA makes some efforts towards being anti-tribal, while social justice is less worried about the downsides of being tribal.
Regarding point 3): I don’t think EA necessarily has a more compelling ideology. One of the big differences I see between the two movements is that SJ is an extremely inclusive movement (basically by definition) when it comes to participation within the movemrnt: who can be a part of the movement, make a difference, and contribute even if the application of this principle may be flawed.
This seems pretty different from EA, and depending on your entry point to EA could put people off and I’m not quite sure how to reconcile that.
Do you see this as an issue (and on what scale)? Do you have any sense of how to reconcile this issue?
Yeah, EA is likely less compelling when this is defined as feeling motivating/interesting to the average person at the moment, although it is hard to judge since EA hasn’t been around for anywhere near as long. Nonetheless, many of the issues EAs care about seem way too weird for the average person, then again if you look at feminism, a lot of the ideas were only ever present in an overly academic form. Part of the reason why they are so influential now is that they have filtered down into the general population in a simpler form (such as “girl power”, “feeling good, rationality bad”). Plus social justice is more likely to benefit the people supporting it in the here and now than EA which focuses more on other countries, other species and other times which is always a tough sell.
I’m generally wary of argument by definition. Indeed, SJ is very inclusive to members of a racial minority or those who are LGBTI, but is very much not when it comes to ideological diversity. And some strands can be very unwelcoming to members of majorities. So it’s much more complex than that.
I phrased that poorly—I added the bit even if the principle is not applied perfectly to cover what you mentioned but I think the more accurate statement would be that one of SJ’s big appeals is that it states to be inclusive.
I do basically think that EA could learn a lot of things from SJ in terms of being an inclusive movement. I think it’s possible that there’s a lot of value to be had (in EA terms) in continuing to increase the inclusivity of EA.
I agree that part of the issue is who feels empowered to make a difference. Part of this is because SJ, in my view, often focuses on things that are not very marginally impactful, but to which many people can contribute. However, I am very excited about recent efforts within the EA community to support a variety of career paths and routes to impact beyond the main ones identified by main EA orgs.
Thanks for listing this as one of your five topics of interest and thanks to everyone for insightful comments.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Beyond movement building & inclusivity, I’d be curious to hear about other domains where you think that EA could learn from the social justice movement/philosophy? E.g., in terms of the methodologies and academic disciplines that the respective movements tend to rely on, epistemic norms, ethical frameworks, etc.
Beyond movement building & inclusivity, I think it makes sense for EA as a movement to keep their current approach because it’s been working pretty well IMO.
I think the thing EAs as people (with a worldview that includes things beyond EA) might want to consider—and which SJ could inform—is the demands that historical injustices of, e.g., colonialism, racism, etc. make on us. I think those demands are plausibly quite large and failure to satisfy them could constitute a ongoing moral catastrophe. Since they’re not welfarist, they’re outside the scope of EA as it currently exists. But for moral uncertainty reasons I think many people should think about them.