I do not think it is good to create taboos around this question. Like, does that mean we shouldn’t post anything that can be construed as concluding that it’s net harmful to donate to GiveWell charities? If so, that would make it much harder to criticise GiveWell and find out what the truth is. What if donating to GiveWell charities really is harmful? Shouldn’t we want to know and find out?
The taboo would be around advocacy of the view that “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist.” Here, innocent group X would be under-5s in developing countries who are/would be saved by GiveWell interventions. That certain criticisms of GiveWell couldn’t be made without breaking the taboo would be a collateral effect rather than the intent, but it’s very hard to avoid over-inclusiveness in a taboo.
There have been social movements that assert that “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist” and encourage people to make legal, non-violent decisions premised on that belief. But I think the base rate of those social movements going well is low (and it may be ~zero). Based on that history and experience, I would need to see a very compelling argument to convince me that going down that path was a good idea here. I don’t see that here; in particular, I think advocacy of the reader donating a share of their charitable budget to animal-welfare orgs to offset any potential negative AW effects of the lifesaving work they fund is considerably less problematic.
Relatedly, I also don’t see things going well for EA if it is seen as acceptable for each of us to post our list of group X and encourage others to not pull members of group X out of a drowning pond even if we could do so costlessly or nearly so. Out of respect for Forum norms, I’m not going to speculate on who other readers’ Group Xs might include, but I can think of several off the top of my head for whom one could make a plausible net-negative argument, all of whom would be less morally objectionable to include on the list than toddlers....
To clarify, I think I’m ok with having a taboo on advocacy against “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist”, since that seems like the kind of naive utilitarianism we should definitely avoid. I’m just against a taboo on asking or trying to better understand whether “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist” is true or not. I don’t think Vasco was engaging in advocacy, my impression was that he was trying to do the latter, while expressing a lot of uncertainty.
The taboo would be around advocacy of the view that “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist.” Here, innocent group X would be under-5s in developing countries who are/would be saved by GiveWell interventions. That certain criticisms of GiveWell couldn’t be made without breaking the taboo would be a collateral effect rather than the intent, but it’s very hard to avoid over-inclusiveness in a taboo.
There have been social movements that assert that “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist” and encourage people to make legal, non-violent decisions premised on that belief. But I think the base rate of those social movements going well is low (and it may be ~zero). Based on that history and experience, I would need to see a very compelling argument to convince me that going down that path was a good idea here. I don’t see that here; in particular, I think advocacy of the reader donating a share of their charitable budget to animal-welfare orgs to offset any potential negative AW effects of the lifesaving work they fund is considerably less problematic.
Relatedly, I also don’t see things going well for EA if it is seen as acceptable for each of us to post our list of group X and encourage others to not pull members of group X out of a drowning pond even if we could do so costlessly or nearly so. Out of respect for Forum norms, I’m not going to speculate on who other readers’ Group Xs might include, but I can think of several off the top of my head for whom one could make a plausible net-negative argument, all of whom would be less morally objectionable to include on the list than toddlers....
To clarify, I think I’m ok with having a taboo on advocacy against “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist”, since that seems like the kind of naive utilitarianism we should definitely avoid. I’m just against a taboo on asking or trying to better understand whether “it is better for the world for innocent group X of people not to exist” is true or not. I don’t think Vasco was engaging in advocacy, my impression was that he was trying to do the latter, while expressing a lot of uncertainty.