I don’t understand what you mean by a “folk-elite” intervention? Do you mean interventions that focus on people near the middle of the x-axis on your graph?
Yeah—appreciate this is ambiguous—I was essentially asking for examples of interventions that blur this binary. This would include interventions closer to the middle of this graph (insofar as they seem genuinely connected to the more extremes). Flavours I was imagining:
Wellbeing in elite spaces (or maybe better elite culture more generally)
It sounds like you are asking, do EAs ever apply folk-style interventions to elites, and elite-style interventions to “folks”?
In that case I think the answer is no:
The reason to help poor people, or sentient beings who are otherwise vulnerable, is that they’re relatively powerless and there are relatively easy ways to help them. People who are wealthy from a global perspective (which includes most poor people in developed countries) are more difficult to help.
“Elite interventions” as you describe them only make sense for people who have a lot of influence. It’s rare for someone with a lot of influence to be poor or vulnerable in the relevant sense.
Interventions that attempt to improve decisionmaking by elites in developing countries might at least slightly blur the chart, to the extent it suggests the “most powerful” are the USG, Silicon Valley elites, etc.
Would you qualify these as leadership in disempowered communities? I’m gonna agree wellbeing in elite spaces is probably only high EV if the TOC is it makes them better at wielding their power.
What are promising folk–elite interventions?
This distinction between “folk interventions” and “elite interventions” feels quite significant in EA spaces.
My instinct that hurt-people hurt people and that elites are often just the visible tip of wider cultural icebergs makes me want to blur this binary.
I don’t understand what you mean by a “folk-elite” intervention? Do you mean interventions that focus on people near the middle of the x-axis on your graph?
Yeah—appreciate this is ambiguous—I was essentially asking for examples of interventions that blur this binary. This would include interventions closer to the middle of this graph (insofar as they seem genuinely connected to the more extremes). Flavours I was imagining:
Wellbeing in elite spaces (or maybe better elite culture more generally)
Leadership in disempowered communities
It sounds like you are asking, do EAs ever apply folk-style interventions to elites, and elite-style interventions to “folks”?
In that case I think the answer is no:
The reason to help poor people, or sentient beings who are otherwise vulnerable, is that they’re relatively powerless and there are relatively easy ways to help them. People who are wealthy from a global perspective (which includes most poor people in developed countries) are more difficult to help.
“Elite interventions” as you describe them only make sense for people who have a lot of influence. It’s rare for someone with a lot of influence to be poor or vulnerable in the relevant sense.
Interventions that attempt to improve decisionmaking by elites in developing countries might at least slightly blur the chart, to the extent it suggests the “most powerful” are the USG, Silicon Valley elites, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad
Would you qualify these as leadership in disempowered communities? I’m gonna agree wellbeing in elite spaces is probably only high EV if the TOC is it makes them better at wielding their power.