Larks—yes, it is hard for any organization that has a strong political leaning to develop more self-awareness about that leaning, to understand why it might be create some problems in cause area assessment and movement-building, and to develop a realistic strategy for outreach and reform that tries to balance out its partisanship.
I guess one strategy might be to frame this as a matter of understanding barriers to achieving more widespread adoption of EA values and priorities. The kinds of objections and concerns that conservatives might have about animal welfare, global public health, global poverty, and X risks might be quite different from the objections and concerns that liberals might typically have.
For example, in terms of geopolitics, conservatives might often have a more positive-sum view of economic growth, but a more zero-sum view of nation-state rivalries (and a more negative view of ‘global coordination’ through institutions such as the United Nations). This might lead to a view of global poverty issues that prioritize promoting the rule of law, efficient markets, and entrepreneurship in poor countries, rather than reallocation of existing resources (eg direct cash transfers). It might also lead to more concern about arms races between nation-states with regard to X risks (e.g. AI, nuclear weapons), and to a profound skepticism about the effectiveness of government regulation or global coordination.
Thus, if conservatives hear EAs making arguments about these issues, without understanding the conservative mind-set at all, they might be turned off from EA as talent, as donors, and as advocates—when they might have actually contributed significantly.
This might lead to a view of global poverty issues that prioritize promoting the rule of law, efficient markets, and entrepreneurship in poor countries, rather than reallocation of existing resources (eg direct cash transfers).
And sometimes the re-branding could even be fairly thin. For instance, World Vision is a major NGO popular among American evangelical Christians; presumably their marketing pitches have been tested against their donor base which has significant conservative elements. IIRC, one of the classic pitches in their holiday gift catalog: your donation will purchase these chickens for a poor family, which will not only produce eggs for consumption but allow them to sell some of the eggs in the marketplace to generate income. In a certain light, that sounds like an indirect cash transfer program that is more legible to some conservatives because it partially bypasses their concern that one-time redistribution programs improve short-term welfare only. Receptiveness to this kind of value proposition might signal openness to indirect cash transfer programs with a better EV, like deworming.
Definitely not recommending World Vision itself. But if you could get more American evangelical Christians to support bednet distribution by creating a new AMF-esque organization with (e.g.) Bible verses featured in its promotional materials and sewn in tags on its bednets, then I would probably be in favor of that. The Bible verses would not make the bednets less effective.
Larks—yes, it is hard for any organization that has a strong political leaning to develop more self-awareness about that leaning, to understand why it might be create some problems in cause area assessment and movement-building, and to develop a realistic strategy for outreach and reform that tries to balance out its partisanship.
I guess one strategy might be to frame this as a matter of understanding barriers to achieving more widespread adoption of EA values and priorities. The kinds of objections and concerns that conservatives might have about animal welfare, global public health, global poverty, and X risks might be quite different from the objections and concerns that liberals might typically have.
For example, in terms of geopolitics, conservatives might often have a more positive-sum view of economic growth, but a more zero-sum view of nation-state rivalries (and a more negative view of ‘global coordination’ through institutions such as the United Nations). This might lead to a view of global poverty issues that prioritize promoting the rule of law, efficient markets, and entrepreneurship in poor countries, rather than reallocation of existing resources (eg direct cash transfers). It might also lead to more concern about arms races between nation-states with regard to X risks (e.g. AI, nuclear weapons), and to a profound skepticism about the effectiveness of government regulation or global coordination.
Thus, if conservatives hear EAs making arguments about these issues, without understanding the conservative mind-set at all, they might be turned off from EA as talent, as donors, and as advocates—when they might have actually contributed significantly.
And sometimes the re-branding could even be fairly thin. For instance, World Vision is a major NGO popular among American evangelical Christians; presumably their marketing pitches have been tested against their donor base which has significant conservative elements. IIRC, one of the classic pitches in their holiday gift catalog: your donation will purchase these chickens for a poor family, which will not only produce eggs for consumption but allow them to sell some of the eggs in the marketplace to generate income. In a certain light, that sounds like an indirect cash transfer program that is more legible to some conservatives because it partially bypasses their concern that one-time redistribution programs improve short-term welfare only. Receptiveness to this kind of value proposition might signal openness to indirect cash transfer programs with a better EV, like deworming.
World Vision being a Christian charity I think dominates these other effects unfortunately.
Definitely not recommending World Vision itself. But if you could get more American evangelical Christians to support bednet distribution by creating a new AMF-esque organization with (e.g.) Bible verses featured in its promotional materials and sewn in tags on its bednets, then I would probably be in favor of that. The Bible verses would not make the bednets less effective.
Jason—great example. A lot of it’s in the framing!