Thanks Sarah for the thoughtful response! I agree that women’s suffrage is an interesting case to consider.
But it neither fully eliminates that root cause, nor does it fully eliminate the specific problem (women’s situation improved after being granted the vote, but it didn’t immediately switch to “no more disadvantageous outcomes for women in society”); nor can I now come up with a more comprehensive systemic intervention that would achieve these outcomes in this example.
This is a good point. Of course, an intervention can do a huge amount of good without fully eliminating the root cause or the specific problem.
Part of what prompted my comment was that I got the impression that the claim was that people working on systemic change are interested in permanent solutions, whereas many EA interventions merely fight symptoms. I don’t think you explicitly claim this, on a reread. I’d probably disagree with this framing :)
Thanks Sarah for the thoughtful response! I agree that women’s suffrage is an interesting case to consider.
This is a good point. Of course, an intervention can do a huge amount of good without fully eliminating the root cause or the specific problem.
Part of what prompted my comment was that I got the impression that the claim was that people working on systemic change are interested in permanent solutions, whereas many EA interventions merely fight symptoms. I don’t think you explicitly claim this, on a reread. I’d probably disagree with this framing :)