I love this a lot. Something that often gets my hackles/Spidey sense up is when someone seems very confident about a particular cause being the “best” or “better”, especially when making difficult (arguably even impossible like you say) comparisons between animals/current humans/future humans. I think it is helpful to make these difficult comparisons but only with deep humility and huge acknowledged uncertainty.
Another benefit of plurality is that it’s easier to have a “bigger EA tent” both in human resource and funding. Us humans will always have different opinions not only about impact, but also the kind of things that we lean towards naturally and also where our competitive advantages are. The more we prioritize the more we may exclude.
I’m not sure having a “bigger EA tent” leads to more funding/interest, if anything, people may be less likely to fund/support/be interested in a group that supports many different areas rather than the cause they mainly care about. At least it seems like cause specific orgs get much more funding than multi-cause/EA orgs.
Yeah I’m not sure we’re really disagreeing here? I agree people are less interested in as group that supports different areas and that orgs should mostly be cause specific. I’m talking about having a lot of grace for a wide range of “high impact’ causes under the broader EA tent depending on people’s epistemics and cost effectiveness calculation methods. I think this is more helpful than doubling down on prioritisation and leaving groups our causes feeling like they might be on the “outer” edge of EA or excluded completely
I love this a lot. Something that often gets my hackles/Spidey sense up is when someone seems very confident about a particular cause being the “best” or “better”, especially when making difficult (arguably even impossible like you say) comparisons between animals/current humans/future humans. I think it is helpful to make these difficult comparisons but only with deep humility and huge acknowledged uncertainty.
Another benefit of plurality is that it’s easier to have a “bigger EA tent” both in human resource and funding. Us humans will always have different opinions not only about impact, but also the kind of things that we lean towards naturally and also where our competitive advantages are. The more we prioritize the more we may exclude.
I’m not sure having a “bigger EA tent” leads to more funding/interest, if anything, people may be less likely to fund/support/be interested in a group that supports many different areas rather than the cause they mainly care about. At least it seems like cause specific orgs get much more funding than multi-cause/EA orgs.
Yeah I’m not sure we’re really disagreeing here? I agree people are less interested in as group that supports different areas and that orgs should mostly be cause specific. I’m talking about having a lot of grace for a wide range of “high impact’ causes under the broader EA tent depending on people’s epistemics and cost effectiveness calculation methods. I think this is more helpful than doubling down on prioritisation and leaving groups our causes feeling like they might be on the “outer” edge of EA or excluded completely
Maybe I’m being too vague here though...