I think you’re maybe treating the “clearly good” / mild end of this spectrum as being specific to global poverty? But I think there’s a lot of x-risk work that’s towards this end too: reducing the risk of nuclear war, reducing airborne pathogen spread, etc.
But with Jason’s extension of the metaphor, I also think maybe Kelsey’s audience on Vox wants to be challenged a bit, and the clearly-good stuff is less interesting. But that doesn’t mean hitting them with the weirdest ideas anyone within EA is playing with is going to work well! You still need to match your offering to your audience, and balance wanting to introduce stranger things against not overwhelming them with something too different.
I think every cause can be presented normally/weirdly depending on how you do it, it was just in that example Kelsey was discussing global dev and I think a lot of people in EA assume that more people are interested in global development as they are just looking outside their bubble into a slightly larger bubble.
I would agree that it’s usually best to introduce people to ideas closer to their interests (in any cause area) before moving onto related ones. Although sometimes they’ll be more interested in the ‘weird’ ideas before getting involved in EA, and EA helps them approach it practically.
I think you’re maybe treating the “clearly good” / mild end of this spectrum as being specific to global poverty? But I think there’s a lot of x-risk work that’s towards this end too: reducing the risk of nuclear war, reducing airborne pathogen spread, etc.
But with Jason’s extension of the metaphor, I also think maybe Kelsey’s audience on Vox wants to be challenged a bit, and the clearly-good stuff is less interesting. But that doesn’t mean hitting them with the weirdest ideas anyone within EA is playing with is going to work well! You still need to match your offering to your audience, and balance wanting to introduce stranger things against not overwhelming them with something too different.
I think every cause can be presented normally/weirdly depending on how you do it, it was just in that example Kelsey was discussing global dev and I think a lot of people in EA assume that more people are interested in global development as they are just looking outside their bubble into a slightly larger bubble.
I would agree that it’s usually best to introduce people to ideas closer to their interests (in any cause area) before moving onto related ones. Although sometimes they’ll be more interested in the ‘weird’ ideas before getting involved in EA, and EA helps them approach it practically.