This is the first post in a series on uniting these two movements. We are stronger together, and I hope to demonstrate that each movement contains immense power to help the other. I see myself as a radical feminist and an Effective Altruist and I view those identities as symbiotic rather than contradictory.
Quickly—I think that all smart and truth-seeking people have a lot to learn from each other. My quick impression is that the radical feminist academic community has a mix of good and bad work, as is true with similar movements. I personally admire some of the combination of radicalism and scholarship, but I have disagreements with a lot of the Marxist-leaning influences that seem prevalent.
At the same time, it’s not clear to me what it would even mean to “unite” exactly. I imagine both communities would feel anxious about some of this.
Thanks for pointing out the vagueness of the word ‘unite’. By this, I mean the following:
EA and radical feminism remain distinct approaches, rather than merging
EA and radical feminism understand each other’s methods, and use each other’s tools where appropriate
EA and radical feminism understand each other’s strategies when working on shared issues, so that their efforts can support rather than oppose each other e.g. reducing incarceration rates in the US
EA and radical feminism reduce competition against each other for funding and donor influence, and rather work together to move funders away from charities that both groups see as ineffective
Both movements recognise which issues their philosophies are well suited to solving, and which issues they are poorly suited to solving. They defer to ‘the expert’ movement in each area.
I’d be interested to hear you disagreements with the Marxist-leaning influences. Could you give a few examples?
I’d be interested to hear you disagreements with the Marxist-leaning influences. Could you give a few examples?
This is a very long + complex topic.
To me, much of it is a deeper issue. I see EA as coming from academic movements such as the Enlightenment, Empiricism, Analytic Philosophy, Humanism. While I see Marxist-leaning clusters as having influences more like Romanticism, Continental Philosophy, Postmodernism, etc. These are two clusters that have had a few-hundred-year argument/disagreement with each other. I’m sure you can find more with more searches and LLM prompts.
I don’t see a ton of overlap here. There are lots of social movements, and meaningful engagement with other social movements does take time, energy, and focus for both movements. Unless there is high overlap or unusual synergies, sometimes it is better for both movements to basically ignore each other. (I would emphasize that the points below apply to whether it is in radical feminism’s interests to expend resources on engaging with EA as much as the converse.)
For instance, although Open Phil has funded work on reducing incarceration rates in the US, that isn’t a current focus of any appreciable segment of the EA community to my knowledge. And to the extent that radical feminists are also working in or near core EA cause areas, it’s plausible that most radical feminists and most EAs have different values and goals that cannot be harmonized with better understanding of different approaches. The idea that their values in these areas are fundamentally compatible is plausible, but would need evidentiary support.
Is there evidence of meaningful competition between the two groups for the same donors and funding sources? Based on your description so far, the movements seem different enough to me that I would expect very few donors to be realistically open to funding EAs (but listening to radical feminist advisors), or vice versa.
In my view, EA generally shouldn’t say much at all about “issues [it is] poorly suited to solving” (and I suspect the same is true of radical feminism). If EA methodologies are not well-suited to solving a problem, then they probably aren’t well suited to figuring out which of the numerous other altruistic social movements are best situated to solve the problem either. Moreover, trying to recommend charities or charitable approaches in a bunch of non-EA cause areas, and doing a good job of it, would be a costly endeavor at best.
Quickly—I think that all smart and truth-seeking people have a lot to learn from each other. My quick impression is that the radical feminist academic community has a mix of good and bad work, as is true with similar movements. I personally admire some of the combination of radicalism and scholarship, but I have disagreements with a lot of the Marxist-leaning influences that seem prevalent.
At the same time, it’s not clear to me what it would even mean to “unite” exactly. I imagine both communities would feel anxious about some of this.
Thanks for pointing out the vagueness of the word ‘unite’. By this, I mean the following:
EA and radical feminism remain distinct approaches, rather than merging
EA and radical feminism understand each other’s methods, and use each other’s tools where appropriate
EA and radical feminism understand each other’s strategies when working on shared issues, so that their efforts can support rather than oppose each other e.g. reducing incarceration rates in the US
EA and radical feminism reduce competition against each other for funding and donor influence, and rather work together to move funders away from charities that both groups see as ineffective
Both movements recognise which issues their philosophies are well suited to solving, and which issues they are poorly suited to solving. They defer to ‘the expert’ movement in each area.
I’d be interested to hear you disagreements with the Marxist-leaning influences. Could you give a few examples?
This is a very long + complex topic.
To me, much of it is a deeper issue. I see EA as coming from academic movements such as the Enlightenment, Empiricism, Analytic Philosophy, Humanism. While I see Marxist-leaning clusters as having influences more like Romanticism, Continental Philosophy, Postmodernism, etc. These are two clusters that have had a few-hundred-year argument/disagreement with each other. I’m sure you can find more with more searches and LLM prompts.
I don’t see a ton of overlap here. There are lots of social movements, and meaningful engagement with other social movements does take time, energy, and focus for both movements. Unless there is high overlap or unusual synergies, sometimes it is better for both movements to basically ignore each other. (I would emphasize that the points below apply to whether it is in radical feminism’s interests to expend resources on engaging with EA as much as the converse.)
For instance, although Open Phil has funded work on reducing incarceration rates in the US, that isn’t a current focus of any appreciable segment of the EA community to my knowledge. And to the extent that radical feminists are also working in or near core EA cause areas, it’s plausible that most radical feminists and most EAs have different values and goals that cannot be harmonized with better understanding of different approaches. The idea that their values in these areas are fundamentally compatible is plausible, but would need evidentiary support.
Is there evidence of meaningful competition between the two groups for the same donors and funding sources? Based on your description so far, the movements seem different enough to me that I would expect very few donors to be realistically open to funding EAs (but listening to radical feminist advisors), or vice versa.
In my view, EA generally shouldn’t say much at all about “issues [it is] poorly suited to solving” (and I suspect the same is true of radical feminism). If EA methodologies are not well-suited to solving a problem, then they probably aren’t well suited to figuring out which of the numerous other altruistic social movements are best situated to solve the problem either. Moreover, trying to recommend charities or charitable approaches in a bunch of non-EA cause areas, and doing a good job of it, would be a costly endeavor at best.