I think something like “only a minority of people [specific researchers, billionaires, etc.] are highly influential, so we should spend a lot of energy influencing them” is a reasonable claim that implies we maybe shouldn’t spend as much energy empowering everyday people. But I haven’t seen any strong evidence either way about how easy it is to (say) convert 1,000 non-billionaires to donate as much as one billionaire.
I do think the above view has some optics problems, and that many people who ‘aren’t highly influential’ obviously could become so if they e.g. changed careers.
As somebody strongly convinced by longtermist arguments, I do find it hard to ‘onboard’ new EAs without somebody asking “do you really think most people will sit and have a protracted philosophical discussion about longtermism?” at some point. I think there are two reasonable approaches to this:
If you start small (suggest donating to the AMF instead of some other charity, and maybe coming to some EA meetings), some people will become more invested and research longtermism on their own who would have otherwise been put off.
It’s useful to have two different pitches for EA for different audiences; discuss longtermism with people who are in philosophy or related fields, and something easier to explain the rest of the time. My impression is this is your pitch in this post?
I’m not currently convinced of either view, but would be interested to hear about other peoples’ experiences.
I think something like “only a minority of people [specific researchers, billionaires, etc.] are highly influential, so we should spend a lot of energy influencing them” is a reasonable claim that implies we maybe shouldn’t spend as much energy empowering everyday people. But I haven’t seen any strong evidence either way about how easy it is to (say) convert 1,000 non-billionaires to donate as much as one billionaire.
I do think the above view has some optics problems, and that many people who ‘aren’t highly influential’ obviously could become so if they e.g. changed careers.
As somebody strongly convinced by longtermist arguments, I do find it hard to ‘onboard’ new EAs without somebody asking “do you really think most people will sit and have a protracted philosophical discussion about longtermism?” at some point. I think there are two reasonable approaches to this:
If you start small (suggest donating to the AMF instead of some other charity, and maybe coming to some EA meetings), some people will become more invested and research longtermism on their own who would have otherwise been put off.
It’s useful to have two different pitches for EA for different audiences; discuss longtermism with people who are in philosophy or related fields, and something easier to explain the rest of the time. My impression is this is your pitch in this post?
I’m not currently convinced of either view, but would be interested to hear about other peoples’ experiences.