Hi thanks for your comment! Sorry for delayed response.
As it happens I think that radical social movements, broadly understood, do have the capacity to course-correct, learning from what has worked or failed before and are compatible with our understanding of human behavior. And certainly they are tolerant of uncertainty—there is little choice but to be!
I’m not sure what it means to be grounded in consequentialism—to invoke it explicitly? Not sure why this would be so important—everyone cares about consequences and radicals have often not been restrained by deontological concerns.
I think that global impartiality is impossible—there is no such thing as a wholly neutral perspective on social phenomena, because qualitative interpretation is fundamental to any social inquiry.
Scope sensitivity: I think that e.g. the distinction between base and super-structure reflects a kind of scope-sensitivity—the idea that some parts of society matter more than others to outcomes and so its more important to change them. Plus the spectrum of reformism to radicalism reflects an awareness of the differences in scale/impact of different social and political changes.
Status-seeking: I think EA has just as much of a problem with this, in light of its affiliation with tech/data/wealth/rationalism, all of which are pretty near the top of cultural, economic and political hierarchies right now!
More generally: I’m happy for EAs to prefer their paradigm—I just think they should admit that any paradigm, including their own, has to be justified in the same inevitably controversial, qualitative terms and that evidence/claims of effectiveness within a paradigm are therefore contingent not just on the ‘data’ but on these qualitative arguments for the paradigm itself. This puts EA on the same footing as those who endorse different paradigms—doesn’t prove EA to be wrong, but does suggest it should be more humble and less inclined to traduce its critics as epistemically lazy or whatever.
Hi thanks for your comment! Sorry for delayed response.
As it happens I think that radical social movements, broadly understood, do have the capacity to course-correct, learning from what has worked or failed before and are compatible with our understanding of human behavior. And certainly they are tolerant of uncertainty—there is little choice but to be!
I’m not sure what it means to be grounded in consequentialism—to invoke it explicitly? Not sure why this would be so important—everyone cares about consequences and radicals have often not been restrained by deontological concerns.
I think that global impartiality is impossible—there is no such thing as a wholly neutral perspective on social phenomena, because qualitative interpretation is fundamental to any social inquiry.
Scope sensitivity: I think that e.g. the distinction between base and super-structure reflects a kind of scope-sensitivity—the idea that some parts of society matter more than others to outcomes and so its more important to change them. Plus the spectrum of reformism to radicalism reflects an awareness of the differences in scale/impact of different social and political changes.
Status-seeking: I think EA has just as much of a problem with this, in light of its affiliation with tech/data/wealth/rationalism, all of which are pretty near the top of cultural, economic and political hierarchies right now!
More generally: I’m happy for EAs to prefer their paradigm—I just think they should admit that any paradigm, including their own, has to be justified in the same inevitably controversial, qualitative terms and that evidence/claims of effectiveness within a paradigm are therefore contingent not just on the ‘data’ but on these qualitative arguments for the paradigm itself. This puts EA on the same footing as those who endorse different paradigms—doesn’t prove EA to be wrong, but does suggest it should be more humble and less inclined to traduce its critics as epistemically lazy or whatever.