I accept that political donations and activism are among the best ways to do good as an individual.
But it is less obvious that EA as an academic discipline and social movement has the analytical frameworks that suit it to politics—we have progress studies and the abundance movement for that. Mainly, I think there is a big difference between consensus-building among experts or altruistically minded individuals and in the political sphere of the mass-public.
It is of course necessary for political donations to be analyzed as trade offs against donations to other cause areas. And there’s a lot of research that needs doing on the effectiveness of campaign donations and protest movements in achieving expected outcomes. And certain cause areas definitely have issue-specific reasons to do political work.
But I wouldn’t want to see an “EA funds for Democrats” or a “EAs Against Trump” campaign.
I accept that political donations and activism are among the best ways to do good as an individual.
But it is less obvious that EA as an academic discipline and social movement has the analytical frameworks that suit it to politics—we have progress studies and the abundance movement for that. Mainly, I think there is a big difference between consensus-building among experts or altruistically minded individuals and in the political sphere of the mass-public.
It is of course necessary for political donations to be analyzed as trade offs against donations to other cause areas. And there’s a lot of research that needs doing on the effectiveness of campaign donations and protest movements in achieving expected outcomes. And certain cause areas definitely have issue-specific reasons to do political work.
But I wouldn’t want to see an “EA funds for Democrats” or a “EAs Against Trump” campaign.