Great and thought-provoking post. Thank you very much for taking the time to write it!
I will think about it and might respond at length later, but for now, let me ask you this: How do you propose the EA movement go about introducing “case-specific effective altruism”? Do you imagine several official sub-groups, each dedicated to a specific cause?* Or do you simply want EA to acknowledge that case-specific effective altruism is a good thing, so that people can set up their own domain-specific EA groups if they like?
In sum, a few words on your thoughts for actual implementation going forward, would be nice! :)
*It seems, that if you are advocating that the EA movement actively pursues domain-specific effective altruism in a number of different domains, this would require a large amount of work from the group/community—work that will therefore not go into the (cause-neutral) traditional EA domain. For this reason alone, one could argue against this implementation (i.e. one could acknowledge that case-specific effective altruism would be a good thing, but still reject to actively do something about it, since the work load would be too high as compared to what you get out of it).
Sure thing. I don’t have a fully-fleshed-out plan to offer you, but here is an initial thought.
My main suggestion is to implement a kind of chapter-based network (let’s assume for the sake of argument that we can figure out a way to avoid confusion with the existing EA-based local chapter system). This is similar to your suggestion of sub-groups dedicated to specific causes and geographies. I think the difference between what I’m envisioning and what you’re suggesting, though, is that I am not thinking that the talent and resources for these organizations would primarily come from the existing EA community. For example, in Createquity’s case, we are all people in the arts and I am the only one who even borderline considers myself an effective altruist. Yet, the work we do is very aligned. Similarly, there is a large if somewhat unorganized community of evaluators, scientists, philanthropists, think tanks, and service organizations dedicated to effective practice in various domains. (I use the term “domain” here rather than “cause” since I am considering geography to be a potential domain.) It is possible that some of those folks could be converted to working on more global EA issues, but for those who can’t be, the domain-specific groups would be a way for them to plug in and put to good use the knowledge that the larger network is generating.
So it would not be a huge drain on existing EA resources, but neither am I advocating that EA take a completely hands-off approach. I think there is a ton of value to be realized from coordination and spread of the EA brand to individual domains. As long as it’s always recognized that domain-specific is subordinate to cause neutral, the brand need not be harmed. It’s almost like the domain-specific organizations are the farm team for EA’s major leagues, both in terms of recommended interventions/actions and potentially for talent as well.
Hi Ian,
Great and thought-provoking post. Thank you very much for taking the time to write it!
I will think about it and might respond at length later, but for now, let me ask you this: How do you propose the EA movement go about introducing “case-specific effective altruism”? Do you imagine several official sub-groups, each dedicated to a specific cause?* Or do you simply want EA to acknowledge that case-specific effective altruism is a good thing, so that people can set up their own domain-specific EA groups if they like?
In sum, a few words on your thoughts for actual implementation going forward, would be nice! :)
*It seems, that if you are advocating that the EA movement actively pursues domain-specific effective altruism in a number of different domains, this would require a large amount of work from the group/community—work that will therefore not go into the (cause-neutral) traditional EA domain. For this reason alone, one could argue against this implementation (i.e. one could acknowledge that case-specific effective altruism would be a good thing, but still reject to actively do something about it, since the work load would be too high as compared to what you get out of it).
Sure thing. I don’t have a fully-fleshed-out plan to offer you, but here is an initial thought.
My main suggestion is to implement a kind of chapter-based network (let’s assume for the sake of argument that we can figure out a way to avoid confusion with the existing EA-based local chapter system). This is similar to your suggestion of sub-groups dedicated to specific causes and geographies. I think the difference between what I’m envisioning and what you’re suggesting, though, is that I am not thinking that the talent and resources for these organizations would primarily come from the existing EA community. For example, in Createquity’s case, we are all people in the arts and I am the only one who even borderline considers myself an effective altruist. Yet, the work we do is very aligned. Similarly, there is a large if somewhat unorganized community of evaluators, scientists, philanthropists, think tanks, and service organizations dedicated to effective practice in various domains. (I use the term “domain” here rather than “cause” since I am considering geography to be a potential domain.) It is possible that some of those folks could be converted to working on more global EA issues, but for those who can’t be, the domain-specific groups would be a way for them to plug in and put to good use the knowledge that the larger network is generating.
So it would not be a huge drain on existing EA resources, but neither am I advocating that EA take a completely hands-off approach. I think there is a ton of value to be realized from coordination and spread of the EA brand to individual domains. As long as it’s always recognized that domain-specific is subordinate to cause neutral, the brand need not be harmed. It’s almost like the domain-specific organizations are the farm team for EA’s major leagues, both in terms of recommended interventions/actions and potentially for talent as well.