Absolutely, I hear this all the time. Here’s some anecdotal advice:
In particular, there’s a strong thread in my circles that privileged people need to give up their power (for example, this was recently posted in the math Discord server at my left-leaning university), and philanthropy allows privileged people to hold onto power while feeling good about themselves. Social justice folks and EAs agree that everyone is complicit in injustice, and we should each take life-changing steps to help. The difference is that EAs claim that throwing away one’s power isn’t a good way to help. EAs could appeal to social justice folks by arguing that donating money is a great way to share the benefits of one’s privilege; GiveDirectly is particularly appealing here. Finally, I’ve heard good things about mutual aid societies; perhaps you could compare and contrast mutual aid societies and effective charities.
Absolutely, I hear this all the time. Here’s some anecdotal advice:
In particular, there’s a strong thread in my circles that privileged people need to give up their power (for example, this was recently posted in the math Discord server at my left-leaning university), and philanthropy allows privileged people to hold onto power while feeling good about themselves. Social justice folks and EAs agree that everyone is complicit in injustice, and we should each take life-changing steps to help. The difference is that EAs claim that throwing away one’s power isn’t a good way to help. EAs could appeal to social justice folks by arguing that donating money is a great way to share the benefits of one’s privilege; GiveDirectly is particularly appealing here. Finally, I’ve heard good things about mutual aid societies; perhaps you could compare and contrast mutual aid societies and effective charities.
Your comment reminded me of this post, whose ideas I like as a starting point for handling this type of question:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/DYr7kBpMpmbygBiEq/the-privilege-of-earning-to-give
Nice, thanks for sharing!