I’ve been thinking about this too. I was really struck by the contrast between the high level of explicit support for “one of our own” running for office vs. the usual resistance to political activism or campaigning otherwise. Personally, I’m strongly in favor of good-faith political campaigning on EA grounds, but from my perspective explicit ties to the EA community shouldn’t matter so much in that calculus—rather, what matters is our expectations of what the candidates would do to advance or block EA-aligned priorities, whether the candidates are branded as EA or not.
In 2020 I suggested that it might be a good idea to set up an entity to vet and endorse candidates for office on EA grounds. While I’m sure such an entity would have still supported Carrick in retrospect, I think one benefit of having a resource like this is that it would allow us to identify, support, and develop relationships with other politicians around the US and in the rest of the world who would be really helpful to have in office while not facing some of the disadvantages of being a newcomer/outsider that Carrick faced.
There are a variety of reasons that having people who are both aligned with our goals, and ALSO willing to listen to pitches on specific policy suggestions, is far more impactful than having people who we are just aligned with in general—but if you look at the list of candidates that Guarding Against Pandemics is supporting, it’s definitely inclusive of many people who are aligned with our goals and not aware or not particularly engaged with EA, but have more background in politics. And while we’re focused on longtermist policy, rather than EA more generally1, we are doing much of what you suggest in terms of finding and vetting candidates—and doing more to actually engage and develop relationships.
I think that among the majority of EAs, we haven’t been as clear as we should be that Carrick’s campaign was part of a larger set of things that GAP is doing, and there are lots of specific political campaigns we still encourage donations towards—in addition to being happy for people to donate directly to the “hard money” PAC, which is capped at $5,000 per donor.
We’re supportive of other EA policy ideas and goals, but we both have limited capacity, and are not currently supporting or opposing anyone on that basis.
I’ve been thinking about this too. I was really struck by the contrast between the high level of explicit support for “one of our own” running for office vs. the usual resistance to political activism or campaigning otherwise. Personally, I’m strongly in favor of good-faith political campaigning on EA grounds, but from my perspective explicit ties to the EA community shouldn’t matter so much in that calculus—rather, what matters is our expectations of what the candidates would do to advance or block EA-aligned priorities, whether the candidates are branded as EA or not.
In 2020 I suggested that it might be a good idea to set up an entity to vet and endorse candidates for office on EA grounds. While I’m sure such an entity would have still supported Carrick in retrospect, I think one benefit of having a resource like this is that it would allow us to identify, support, and develop relationships with other politicians around the US and in the rest of the world who would be really helpful to have in office while not facing some of the disadvantages of being a newcomer/outsider that Carrick faced.
There are a variety of reasons that having people who are both aligned with our goals, and ALSO willing to listen to pitches on specific policy suggestions, is far more impactful than having people who we are just aligned with in general—but if you look at the list of candidates that Guarding Against Pandemics is supporting, it’s definitely inclusive of many people who are aligned with our goals and not aware or not particularly engaged with EA, but have more background in politics. And while we’re focused on longtermist policy, rather than EA more generally1, we are doing much of what you suggest in terms of finding and vetting candidates—and doing more to actually engage and develop relationships.
I think that among the majority of EAs, we haven’t been as clear as we should be that Carrick’s campaign was part of a larger set of things that GAP is doing, and there are lots of specific political campaigns we still encourage donations towards—in addition to being happy for people to donate directly to the “hard money” PAC, which is capped at $5,000 per donor.
We’re supportive of other EA policy ideas and goals, but we both have limited capacity, and are not currently supporting or opposing anyone on that basis.