Miscellaneous phrases (including “As one of the few new congressional districts in the nation” and “say that they value” and “Having tipped the balance the wrong way”) are unnecessarily misleading, rude, and anti-truth-seeking.
E.g. it’s almost totally irrelevant that this is a new congressional district, and the author presumably knows that.
Relatedly this is a one-sided pitch; I prefer posts like this to seek to inform rather than convince.
I believe we should think in terms of marginal effectiveness rather than offsetting particular harms we (individually or as a community) cause (see the author’s “you will have contributed in a small way to this failure” argument). If you want to offset harm that you have done or if you feel guilty, there’s little reason to do good in that particular domain (in this case, by donating to Salinas) rather than doing good in a more effective manner.
I think it’s worth engaging with Carol, the Salinas campaign, and more generally people who have been adversely affected by EA efforts. If EA wants win elections in party politics, it will require working together with people who run those parties. Narrowly speaking, you might think that they’re not focused on the most important issues or that you have better policy ideas, and you might be right. But the ability to build coalitions, working together despite disagreements to accomplish common goals, is a central challenge of party politics.
I’m not convinced that EAs should donate to the Salinas campaign. FiveThirtyEight gives her a 78% chance of winning her race, meaning that closer races would offer a better chance for donations to tip the scales. Salinas also doesn’t list pandemic preparedness on her Issues page, which was the key issue of the Flynn campaign and I believe an important and neglected cause. But if the argument for the cost-effectiveness of donations to the Salinas campaign were to change, or if EAs found a more cost-effective way to offset possible harms of the Flynn campaign by continuing to engage with Oregonian or Democratic politics, I would consider supporting such an effort.
More simply, EAs should be kind and understanding in our discussions with Carol and others affected by our work. Maybe they’re interested in the EA mindset, but they’re unsure how to interpret our actions. We should show them good examples of how we think.
I believe we should think in terms of marginal effectiveness rather than offsetting particular harms we (individually or as a community) cause (see the author’s “you will have contributed in a small way to this failure” argument). If you want to offset harm that you have done or if you feel guilty, there’s little reason to do good in that particular domain (in this case, by donating to Salinas) rather than doing good in a more effective manner.
I think many people would disagree, and I expect that they’ll interpret your unwillingness to offset direct harms as a moral failure and an inability to cooperate with others. There are some domains that call for ruthless cost-effectiveness, and others that call for building relationships and trust with people with whom you might not always agree. I think politics is the latter.
I believe we should think in terms of marginal effectiveness rather than offsetting particular harms we (individually or as a community) cause (see the author’s “you will have contributed in a small way to this failure” argument). If you want to offset harm that you have done, there’s little reason to do so by donating to Salinas rather than doing good in a more effective manner.
I have no involvement in the Oregon race, but I disagree with this particular line of reasoning. Even setting aside traditional non-consequentialist arguments for compensating for harm (which I happen to believe in, and which I think are perfectly fine for EAs to act upon while still being EAs), this line of reasoning only works if one adopts causal decision theory.
If we instead adopt functional decision theory, then there are much stronger reasons to consistently act as a harm-compensating agent. In particular, it can disincentivize harmful strategic behavior by others who try to influence you by simulating what might do in the future. If you cannot be simulated to harm some party without compensating them later, then you cannot be influenced to do so by others. It also enables co-operation with others who can now trust you will compensate them for harm (necessary even for everyday economic interactions).
I think one could disagree as to whether FDT applies in this case (and also disagree with FDT in general), but I want to push back against the general argument that we should always be marginal thinkers, without consideration for the history of past events.
(S/O to particlemaniafor having first explained this argument to me. There’s also an argument to be made that conventional morality evolved FDT-like characteristics precisely to solve these strategic problems, but I won’t get into that here.)
I don’t buy that CDT vs FDT matters here? It’s seems like you’ll do better to always try to do what’s best (and appropriately take into account how actors may try to influence you) than focus on compensating for harm. And perfect altruists (at least) are able to cooperate without compensating one another’s harms. And it’s not like there’s potential cooperation with Salinas here—donating to her won’t affect her actions. And there are some cases where you should act differently if you thought you were being simulated, but those seem to be the exception for general harm-offsetting decisions.
(I probably can’t continue a discussion on this now, sorry, but if there’s something explaining this argument in more detail I’d try to read it.)
P.S. thinking in terms of contractualism, I think rational agents would prefer good-maximizing over harm-compensation policies, e.g. from behind a veil of ignorance.
I initially downvoted for many of the same reasons. And tbh, I still don’t like this post, as it does give off big “give us money please” vibes without really justifying some of its key claims.
But ultimately I rescinded the downvote because it (sort of) raises a good point: IF people actually believe Flynn/EA undermined Salinas enough to cost the Dems the election, it might really look bad for EA. This leads me to wonder if it isn’t worth just paying some to offset part of the (supposed) damages.
Personally, I’m reluctant to caving to mud throwing and misrepresenting rhetoric used to extort money out of a good cause. Probably if Salinas came out genuinely in favor of pandemic prevention policies I’d probably be quite supportive of providing funds—but otherwise I’d be iffy on it.
But it’s not my money…
Update: Actually, I’m becoming much more pessimistic about funding Salinas unless she clearly supported pandemic preparedness/prevention, because otherwise it would come across as more partisan (“we’re funding this Democrat because… we were told we hurt this Democrat…”). And appeals to political slogans like “short term business success instead of long term sustainability of our world” is honestly a bit intellectually insulting to me.
Cf. your update, I’d guess the second order case should rely on things being bad rather than looking bad. The second-order case in the OP looks pretty slim, and little better than the direct EV case: it is facially risible supporters of a losing candidate owe the winning candidate’s campaign reparations for having the temerity to compete against them in the primary. The tone of this attempt to garner donations by talking down to these potential donors as if they were naughty children who should be ashamed of themselves for their political activity also doesn’t help.
I’d guess strenuous primary contests within a party does harm the winning candidate’s chances for the general (sort of like a much watered down version of third party candidates splitting the vote for D or R), but competitive primaries seem on balance neutral-to-good for political culture, thus competing in them when one has a fair chance of winning seems fair game.
It seems the key potential ‘norm violation you owe us for’ is the significant out-of-state fundraising. If this was in some sense a ‘bug’ in the political system, taking advantage of it would give Salinas and her supporters a legitimate beef (and would defray the potential hypocrisy of supporters of Salinas attacking Flynn in the primary for this yet subsequently hoping to solicit the same to benefit Salinas for the general—the latter is sought to ‘balance off’ the former). This looks colorable but dubious by my lights: not least, nationwide efforts for both parties typically funnel masses of out-of-state support to candidates in particular election races, and a principled distinction between the two isn’t apparent to me.
Maybe it’s just a matter of degree but the Protect our Future PAC spent unprecedented levels on Carrick’s campaign, and, maybe this more of a principled distinguishing feature, they seem to have spent $1.75M on attack ads against Salinas, which maybe biggest ‘within party’ attack ad budget in a primary. Seems understandable this can be seen as a norm violation (attack ads are more sticky) and perhaps it’s poor ‘cooperation with other value systems’.
Yeah, the language in your comment really resonates with me/my emotions and also gives me a more negative view of the OP, yet I am worried about being overly influenced by 1) the quality of the OP (relative to the legitimacy of the underlying points), and 2) my emotions on this.
Ultimately, I think the second order effects still dominate and warrant someone somewhere giving this request a good think-through separate from emotional reactions:
Does not providing some funds to Salinas hurt the chances of future EA candidates or advocacy (especially those who might run for or target the Democratic Party) due to Dem opposition/bitterness (regardless of how legitimate such feelings may be)?
Does providing funds to Salinas hurt the chances of future EA candidates or advocacy (especially those who who might run for or target the Republican Party) due to Republicans portraying EA as a “fund blue no matter who” movement (regardless of how legitimate such a label may be)?
Bold PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) campaign arm, is preparing the seven-figure independent expenditure in favor of its endorsed candidate, state Rep. Andrea Salinas (D), in the race for Oregon’s newly created 6th District.
… The new investment is a tit-for-tat blow against the Democratic leadership PAC, House Majority PAC (HMP), which earlier this month pledged a similar investment to prop up political newcomer Carrick Flynn in that race.
Downvoted because
There’s little attempt to justify why Salinas is a great donation-target, much less one of the best available.
I believe supporting Salinas is quite clearly and robustly less valuable than alternatives.
There are better donation-targets for causing Democrats to keep Congress.
Salinas’s district is substantially more Democratic than the median, so it’s quite unlikely to be the tipping point.
There are more important, tractable, and neglected causes than causing Democrats to keep Congress.
For example, longtermism via the Longtermism Fund.
Miscellaneous phrases (including “As one of the few new congressional districts in the nation” and “say that they value” and “Having tipped the balance the wrong way”) are unnecessarily misleading, rude, and anti-truth-seeking.
E.g. it’s almost totally irrelevant that this is a new congressional district, and the author presumably knows that.
Relatedly this is a one-sided pitch; I prefer posts like this to seek to inform rather than convince.
I believe we should think in terms of marginal effectiveness rather than offsetting particular harms we (individually or as a community) cause (see the author’s “you will have contributed in a small way to this failure” argument). If you want to offset harm that you have done or if you feel guilty, there’s little reason to do good in that particular domain (in this case, by donating to Salinas) rather than doing good in a more effective manner.
(Good luck to Salinas.)
I think it’s worth engaging with Carol, the Salinas campaign, and more generally people who have been adversely affected by EA efforts. If EA wants win elections in party politics, it will require working together with people who run those parties. Narrowly speaking, you might think that they’re not focused on the most important issues or that you have better policy ideas, and you might be right. But the ability to build coalitions, working together despite disagreements to accomplish common goals, is a central challenge of party politics.
I’m not convinced that EAs should donate to the Salinas campaign. FiveThirtyEight gives her a 78% chance of winning her race, meaning that closer races would offer a better chance for donations to tip the scales. Salinas also doesn’t list pandemic preparedness on her Issues page, which was the key issue of the Flynn campaign and I believe an important and neglected cause. But if the argument for the cost-effectiveness of donations to the Salinas campaign were to change, or if EAs found a more cost-effective way to offset possible harms of the Flynn campaign by continuing to engage with Oregonian or Democratic politics, I would consider supporting such an effort.
More simply, EAs should be kind and understanding in our discussions with Carol and others affected by our work. Maybe they’re interested in the EA mindset, but they’re unsure how to interpret our actions. We should show them good examples of how we think.
I think many people would disagree, and I expect that they’ll interpret your unwillingness to offset direct harms as a moral failure and an inability to cooperate with others. There are some domains that call for ruthless cost-effectiveness, and others that call for building relationships and trust with people with whom you might not always agree. I think politics is the latter.
I have no involvement in the Oregon race, but I disagree with this particular line of reasoning. Even setting aside traditional non-consequentialist arguments for compensating for harm (which I happen to believe in, and which I think are perfectly fine for EAs to act upon while still being EAs), this line of reasoning only works if one adopts causal decision theory.
If we instead adopt functional decision theory, then there are much stronger reasons to consistently act as a harm-compensating agent. In particular, it can disincentivize harmful strategic behavior by others who try to influence you by simulating what might do in the future. If you cannot be simulated to harm some party without compensating them later, then you cannot be influenced to do so by others. It also enables co-operation with others who can now trust you will compensate them for harm (necessary even for everyday economic interactions).
I think one could disagree as to whether FDT applies in this case (and also disagree with FDT in general), but I want to push back against the general argument that we should always be marginal thinkers, without consideration for the history of past events.
(S/O to particlemania for having first explained this argument to me. There’s also an argument to be made that conventional morality evolved FDT-like characteristics precisely to solve these strategic problems, but I won’t get into that here.)
I don’t buy that CDT vs FDT matters here? It’s seems like you’ll do better to always try to do what’s best (and appropriately take into account how actors may try to influence you) than focus on compensating for harm. And perfect altruists (at least) are able to cooperate without compensating one another’s harms. And it’s not like there’s potential cooperation with Salinas here—donating to her won’t affect her actions. And there are some cases where you should act differently if you thought you were being simulated, but those seem to be the exception for general harm-offsetting decisions.
(I probably can’t continue a discussion on this now, sorry, but if there’s something explaining this argument in more detail I’d try to read it.)
P.S. thinking in terms of contractualism, I think rational agents would prefer good-maximizing over harm-compensation policies, e.g. from behind a veil of ignorance.
I initially downvoted for many of the same reasons. And tbh, I still don’t like this post, as it does give off big “give us money please” vibes without really justifying some of its key claims.
But ultimately I rescinded the downvote because it (sort of) raises a good point: IF people actually believe Flynn/EA undermined Salinas enough to cost the Dems the election, it might really look bad for EA. This leads me to wonder if it isn’t worth just paying some to offset part of the (supposed) damages.
Personally, I’m reluctant to caving to mud throwing and misrepresenting rhetoric used to extort money out of a good cause. Probably if Salinas came out genuinely in favor of pandemic prevention policies I’d probably be quite supportive of providing funds—but otherwise I’d be iffy on it.
But it’s not my money…
Update: Actually, I’m becoming much more pessimistic about funding Salinas unless she clearly supported pandemic preparedness/prevention, because otherwise it would come across as more partisan (“we’re funding this Democrat because… we were told we hurt this Democrat…”). And appeals to political slogans like “short term business success instead of long term sustainability of our world” is honestly a bit intellectually insulting to me.
Cf. your update, I’d guess the second order case should rely on things being bad rather than looking bad. The second-order case in the OP looks pretty slim, and little better than the direct EV case: it is facially risible supporters of a losing candidate owe the winning candidate’s campaign reparations for having the temerity to compete against them in the primary. The tone of this attempt to garner donations by talking down to these potential donors as if they were naughty children who should be ashamed of themselves for their political activity also doesn’t help.
I’d guess strenuous primary contests within a party does harm the winning candidate’s chances for the general (sort of like a much watered down version of third party candidates splitting the vote for D or R), but competitive primaries seem on balance neutral-to-good for political culture, thus competing in them when one has a fair chance of winning seems fair game.
It seems the key potential ‘norm violation you owe us for’ is the significant out-of-state fundraising. If this was in some sense a ‘bug’ in the political system, taking advantage of it would give Salinas and her supporters a legitimate beef (and would defray the potential hypocrisy of supporters of Salinas attacking Flynn in the primary for this yet subsequently hoping to solicit the same to benefit Salinas for the general—the latter is sought to ‘balance off’ the former). This looks colorable but dubious by my lights: not least, nationwide efforts for both parties typically funnel masses of out-of-state support to candidates in particular election races, and a principled distinction between the two isn’t apparent to me.
Maybe it’s just a matter of degree but the Protect our Future PAC spent unprecedented levels on Carrick’s campaign, and, maybe this more of a principled distinguishing feature, they seem to have spent $1.75M on attack ads against Salinas, which maybe biggest ‘within party’ attack ad budget in a primary. Seems understandable this can be seen as a norm violation (attack ads are more sticky) and perhaps it’s poor ‘cooperation with other value systems’.
Yeah, the language in your comment really resonates with me/my emotions and also gives me a more negative view of the OP, yet I am worried about being overly influenced by 1) the quality of the OP (relative to the legitimacy of the underlying points), and 2) my emotions on this.
Ultimately, I think the second order effects still dominate and warrant someone somewhere giving this request a good think-through separate from emotional reactions:
Does not providing some funds to Salinas hurt the chances of future EA candidates or advocacy (especially those who might run for or target the Democratic Party) due to Dem opposition/bitterness (regardless of how legitimate such feelings may be)?
Does providing funds to Salinas hurt the chances of future EA candidates or advocacy (especially those who who might run for or target the Republican Party) due to Republicans portraying EA as a “fund blue no matter who” movement (regardless of how legitimate such a label may be)?
Indeed, there was an explicit tit-for-tat donation of out-of-state money to Salinas intended to offset donations to Flynn: