Summary: It’s common knowledge that the movement which has grown in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests brands itself as seeking to defund rather than abolish the police. To make the same, very literal mistake one criticizes another movement for making signals EA is too sloppy and careless to be really effective or taken seriously.
This of course rightly identifies the kind of problem but misrepresents its content. The word used is not “abolish” but “defund.”
This is common knowledge. I don’t mean this personally, as I sympathize with one not considering it necessary to be so tedious, but there is technically no excuse for making this mistake.
It might seem like a trivial fact. Yet if it’s trivial, it also takes no effort to acknowledge it. It’s important for participants in effective altruism to indicate their earnest effort to be impartial by taking enough care to not make the same mistake(s) other movements are being criticized for making.
The claim is “defund” means something like:
Dramatically reduce the annual budgets of police.
Reallocate that funding to public services and social programs that address the systemic causes of crime and to reduce crime rates by other means.
This of course isn’t a sufficient defence of the slogan “defund the police.” It neglects the fact that almost everyone who isn’t involved in social justice movements will interpret defund as a synonym for abolish.
Yet rebranding with the term “police reform” would also pose a problem. It’s an over-correction that fails to distinguish how one movement seeks to reform the police from the ways anyone else would reform the police.
The open borders movement faces the same challenge. Rebranding “open borders” as “immigration reform” would be pointless.
The best term I’ve seen to replace “defund the police” is “divest from the police” because it more accurately represents the goal of reallocating funding from policing to other public services. I only saw it embraced by the local movement where I live in Vancouver for a few months in 2020. That movement now mostly brands itself with “defund” instead of “divest.” I haven’t asked why but I presume it’s because association with the better-known brand brings them more attention and recognition.
I’m aware this comment is probably annoying. I almost didn’t want to write it because I don’t want to annoy others.
Yet misrepresenting another movement like this isn’t even strawmanning. It indicates an erroneous understanding of that movement. The criticism doesn’t apply to something that movement isn’t doing.
The need I feel to do this annoys me too. It’s annoying because it puts EA in a position of always having to steelman other movements.
It begs the question of whether it’s really necessary for EA to steelman other movements when they only ever strawman EA. The answer to that question is yes.
It’s not about validating those other movements. It’s about reinforcing the habit of being effective so EA can succeed when other movements fail.
Other than the major focus areas in EA, there are efforts to effectively make progress in achieving the goals for causes prioritized by other movements. For example, Open Philanthropy focuses on criminal justice reform too. By trying to be the most effective for every cause EA pursues, EA can outperform other movements in ways that will move the public to care more about effectiveness and trust EA more.
(Full disclosure: I support the general effort to dramatically decrease police funding and reallocate that money to public services and social programs that will better and more systemically serve the goals of public safety and crime reduction. I know multiple core activists and organizers in the local ‘defund the police’ movement.)
Summary: It’s common knowledge that the movement which has grown in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests brands itself as seeking to defund rather than abolish the police. To make the same, very literal mistake one criticizes another movement for making signals EA is too sloppy and careless to be really effective or taken seriously.
This of course rightly identifies the kind of problem but misrepresents its content. The word used is not “abolish” but “defund.”
This is common knowledge. I don’t mean this personally, as I sympathize with one not considering it necessary to be so tedious, but there is technically no excuse for making this mistake.
It might seem like a trivial fact. Yet if it’s trivial, it also takes no effort to acknowledge it. It’s important for participants in effective altruism to indicate their earnest effort to be impartial by taking enough care to not make the same mistake(s) other movements are being criticized for making.
The claim is “defund” means something like:
Dramatically reduce the annual budgets of police.
Reallocate that funding to public services and social programs that address the systemic causes of crime and to reduce crime rates by other means.
This of course isn’t a sufficient defence of the slogan “defund the police.” It neglects the fact that almost everyone who isn’t involved in social justice movements will interpret defund as a synonym for abolish.
Yet rebranding with the term “police reform” would also pose a problem. It’s an over-correction that fails to distinguish how one movement seeks to reform the police from the ways anyone else would reform the police.
The open borders movement faces the same challenge. Rebranding “open borders” as “immigration reform” would be pointless.
The best term I’ve seen to replace “defund the police” is “divest from the police” because it more accurately represents the goal of reallocating funding from policing to other public services. I only saw it embraced by the local movement where I live in Vancouver for a few months in 2020. That movement now mostly brands itself with “defund” instead of “divest.” I haven’t asked why but I presume it’s because association with the better-known brand brings them more attention and recognition.
I’m aware this comment is probably annoying. I almost didn’t want to write it because I don’t want to annoy others.
Yet misrepresenting another movement like this isn’t even strawmanning. It indicates an erroneous understanding of that movement. The criticism doesn’t apply to something that movement isn’t doing.
The need I feel to do this annoys me too. It’s annoying because it puts EA in a position of always having to steelman other movements.
It begs the question of whether it’s really necessary for EA to steelman other movements when they only ever strawman EA. The answer to that question is yes.
It’s not about validating those other movements. It’s about reinforcing the habit of being effective so EA can succeed when other movements fail.
Other than the major focus areas in EA, there are efforts to effectively make progress in achieving the goals for causes prioritized by other movements. For example, Open Philanthropy focuses on criminal justice reform too. By trying to be the most effective for every cause EA pursues, EA can outperform other movements in ways that will move the public to care more about effectiveness and trust EA more.
(Full disclosure: I support the general effort to dramatically decrease police funding and reallocate that money to public services and social programs that will better and more systemically serve the goals of public safety and crime reduction. I know multiple core activists and organizers in the local ‘defund the police’ movement.)