I expect EA hasn’t publicly acknowledged this is as much as we maybe should have in the past because:
1. Even if we were to assume the worst, and that all the gains of the Western world EA is giving away were originally ill-gotten, it wouldn’t change how we think it is best redistributed to improve the world, including to do justice by the very people the wealth would allegedly have been expropriated from;
2. Acknowledging this can give opportunistic critics of EA the chance to back EA into a corner and pillory us as too ignorant of issues of justice to accomplish any good;
3. Even if we did acknowledged this, it’s unclear we would reach a conclusion about what EA should do better than what we have now, since this is a question of the origins of wealth, a fundamental question of politics as hotly disputed in the world today as any, and not one I expect EA would be able to resolve to anyone’s satisfaction.
This isn’t to say EA shouldn’t do better on this issue. It’s just in my experience the conditions set up when people debate these questions in public, including with regard to EA, aren’t set up to give EA a chance to learn, respond, update, improve, or change. I.e., most instances when this subject is broached it is a political debate set up for rhetorical purposes by 2 sides EA is caught between, and who exploit EA’s reception to criticism to use it as a springboard to advance their own agenda.
I expect EA hasn’t publicly acknowledged this is as much as we maybe should have in the past because:
1. Even if we were to assume the worst, and that all the gains of the Western world EA is giving away were originally ill-gotten, it wouldn’t change how we think it is best redistributed to improve the world, including to do justice by the very people the wealth would allegedly have been expropriated from;
2. Acknowledging this can give opportunistic critics of EA the chance to back EA into a corner and pillory us as too ignorant of issues of justice to accomplish any good;
3. Even if we did acknowledged this, it’s unclear we would reach a conclusion about what EA should do better than what we have now, since this is a question of the origins of wealth, a fundamental question of politics as hotly disputed in the world today as any, and not one I expect EA would be able to resolve to anyone’s satisfaction.
This isn’t to say EA shouldn’t do better on this issue. It’s just in my experience the conditions set up when people debate these questions in public, including with regard to EA, aren’t set up to give EA a chance to learn, respond, update, improve, or change. I.e., most instances when this subject is broached it is a political debate set up for rhetorical purposes by 2 sides EA is caught between, and who exploit EA’s reception to criticism to use it as a springboard to advance their own agenda.