Usually, in EA circles, I find there is too much philosophizing and not enough action. But in this case, I feel like biodiversity/ecoresilience has failed to come up with enough philosophical justification for why biodiversity/ecoresilience matters.
We don’t aim to convince more EA’s to care about biodiversity. If you ALREADY support biodiversity conservation, we want to provide answers on how to do it better.
I feel like this is step 1 though. I would feel similar if someone were to recommend DanceVariety Initative, a 2 year old research group building an effective altruism-based recommendation framework for variety in dance styles and the first step wasn’t “convince a critical mass of EAs that this is a top priority in the first place”.
Effective altruism-based recommendation framework for biodiversity and ecosystems
The EA framework is essentially applying rigor, quantification, measurement, etc. to the world’s most pressing problems but there is no reason you can’t apply rigor, quantification and measurement to anything (maximizing shareholder value, collecting stamps, getting good at chess, making your NBA team better). What makes it EA is when it is applied to the most pressing problems and I don’t think biodiversity/ecoresilience has made a compelling case or put enough effort into it.
Usually, in EA circles, I find there is too much philosophizing and not enough action. But in this case, I feel like biodiversity/ecoresilience has failed to come up with enough philosophical justification for why biodiversity/ecoresilience matters.
I feel like this is step 1 though. I would feel similar if someone were to recommend DanceVariety Initative, a 2 year old research group building an effective altruism-based recommendation framework for variety in dance styles and the first step wasn’t “convince a critical mass of EAs that this is a top priority in the first place”.
The EA framework is essentially applying rigor, quantification, measurement, etc. to the world’s most pressing problems but there is no reason you can’t apply rigor, quantification and measurement to anything (maximizing shareholder value, collecting stamps, getting good at chess, making your NBA team better). What makes it EA is when it is applied to the most pressing problems and I don’t think biodiversity/ecoresilience has made a compelling case or put enough effort into it.