Thanks for this post! I think it’s interesting, I’m very glad you wrote it, and I’m inclined to agree with a narrow version of it. I imagine many senior EAs will agree as well with a statement like “often to do much more good we’re on the margin more bottlenecked by conceptual and empirical clarity than we are by lack of resources” (eg I’d usually be happier for a researcher-year to be spent helping the movement become less confused than for them to acquire resources via eg writing white papers that policymakers will agree with or via public comms or via making money), though of course I imagine degree of agreement varies a lot depending on the operationalizations in question.
One thread of thought I had that’s somewhere between an extension and a critique:
In a recent blog post, Open Philanthropy Co-CEO Holden Karnofsky introduces the analogy of “the-world-as-a-ship” as a framework for thinking about efforts to make the world better.
Under this analogy, if you are ‘rowing’ the ship, you are trying to “help the ship reach its current destination faster.” By contrast, if you are ‘steering’ the ship, you aim to “navigate to a better destination than the current one.” Alternative options include anchoring, equity, and mutiny [emphasis mine]
I’d be interested in seeing someone develop into what anchoring, equity, and mutiny looks like for the EA and LT movements.
This is particularly relevant here because in practice. attempts of steering cannot easily be differentiated from attempts at anchoring, equity, or mutiny.
For example, “maybe we should stop what we’re doing and critically re-evaluate whether longtermism is good” might be an attempt at steering, but it might also be an attempt at anchoring.
Steering options that look like taking into account more voices within effective altruism, or considering a broader range of perspectives and causes, with an (implicit) inference that equity and diversity leads to better decisions, might likewise be hard to differentiate in practice from an intrinsic preference for within-effective altruism equity, whether among individual EA people or EA cause areas. Hadyn’s post of alternatives to donor lotteries comes to mind here.
Finally, some critiques of the EA orthodoxy by heterodox folks, particularly ones that are a) highly prominent, b) seek external influence as their primary readers, and c) read as personal attacks, verge on mutiny (albeit poorly executed). Dylan Matthews 2015 article on EA Global arguably reads this way to me, as does attempts by Torres et.al of painting longtermism as an instantiation of white supremacy.
I’m interested in seeing people developing and clarifying this ontology further.
If I were to be critical of your post (and to be clear, this is stronger than what I actually believe), I’d argue that steering has overly positive associations in people’s heads (not least because Holden identifies EA as trying to do steering!). If people thought through the implications of how steering might happen in practice, when it may be hard to differentiate from the more negatively-connoted (and probably more negative in practice) anchoring, equity, or mutiny, then their emotional associations and conclusions w/r/t the rowing vs. steering debate might be somewhat more measured.
Yeah, I agree that my examples of steering sometimes are closely related to other terms in Holden’s framework, particularly equity – indeed I have a comment about that buried deep in a footnote.
One reason I think this happens is because I think a super important concept for steering is the idea of moral uncertainty, and taking moral uncertainty seriously can imply putting a greater weight on equity than you otherwise might.
I guess another reason is that I tend to assume that effective steering is, as an empirical matter, more likely to be achieved if you incorporate a wide range of voices and perspectives. And this does in practice end up being similar to efforts to “amplify the voices and advance the interests of historically marginalized groups” that Holden puts under the category of equity. But yeah, like you say, it can be hard to differentiate whether people advocate for equity and diversity of perspectives for instrumental or intrinsic reasons (I’m keen on both).
I also think your last remark is a fair critique of my post – perhaps I did bring in some more controversial (though, to me, compelling!) perspectives under the less controversial heading of steering.
A very similar critique I’ve heard from two others is something like: “Is your argument purely that there isn’t enough steering going on, or is it also that you disagree with the current direction of steering?” And I think, to be fair, that it’s also partly the latter for me, at least on some very specific domains.
But one response to that is that, yes, I disagree with some of the current steering – but a necessary condition for changing direction is that people talk/care/focus more on steering, so I’m going to make the case for that first.
Thanks for this post! I think it’s interesting, I’m very glad you wrote it, and I’m inclined to agree with a narrow version of it. I imagine many senior EAs will agree as well with a statement like “often to do much more good we’re on the margin more bottlenecked by conceptual and empirical clarity than we are by lack of resources” (eg I’d usually be happier for a researcher-year to be spent helping the movement become less confused than for them to acquire resources via eg writing white papers that policymakers will agree with or via public comms or via making money), though of course I imagine degree of agreement varies a lot depending on the operationalizations in question.
One thread of thought I had that’s somewhere between an extension and a critique:
I’d be interested in seeing someone develop into what anchoring, equity, and mutiny looks like for the EA and LT movements.
This is particularly relevant here because in practice. attempts of steering cannot easily be differentiated from attempts at anchoring, equity, or mutiny.
For example, “maybe we should stop what we’re doing and critically re-evaluate whether longtermism is good” might be an attempt at steering, but it might also be an attempt at anchoring.
Steering options that look like taking into account more voices within effective altruism, or considering a broader range of perspectives and causes, with an (implicit) inference that equity and diversity leads to better decisions, might likewise be hard to differentiate in practice from an intrinsic preference for within-effective altruism equity, whether among individual EA people or EA cause areas. Hadyn’s post of alternatives to donor lotteries comes to mind here.
Finally, some critiques of the EA orthodoxy by heterodox folks, particularly ones that are a) highly prominent, b) seek external influence as their primary readers, and c) read as personal attacks, verge on mutiny (albeit poorly executed). Dylan Matthews 2015 article on EA Global arguably reads this way to me, as does attempts by Torres et.al of painting longtermism as an instantiation of white supremacy.
I’m interested in seeing people developing and clarifying this ontology further.
If I were to be critical of your post (and to be clear, this is stronger than what I actually believe), I’d argue that steering has overly positive associations in people’s heads (not least because Holden identifies EA as trying to do steering!). If people thought through the implications of how steering might happen in practice, when it may be hard to differentiate from the more negatively-connoted (and probably more negative in practice) anchoring, equity, or mutiny, then their emotional associations and conclusions w/r/t the rowing vs. steering debate might be somewhat more measured.
Hey Linch, thanks for this thoughtful comment!
Yeah, I agree that my examples of steering sometimes are closely related to other terms in Holden’s framework, particularly equity – indeed I have a comment about that buried deep in a footnote.
One reason I think this happens is because I think a super important concept for steering is the idea of moral uncertainty, and taking moral uncertainty seriously can imply putting a greater weight on equity than you otherwise might.
I guess another reason is that I tend to assume that effective steering is, as an empirical matter, more likely to be achieved if you incorporate a wide range of voices and perspectives. And this does in practice end up being similar to efforts to “amplify the voices and advance the interests of historically marginalized groups” that Holden puts under the category of equity. But yeah, like you say, it can be hard to differentiate whether people advocate for equity and diversity of perspectives for instrumental or intrinsic reasons (I’m keen on both).
I also think your last remark is a fair critique of my post – perhaps I did bring in some more controversial (though, to me, compelling!) perspectives under the less controversial heading of steering.
A very similar critique I’ve heard from two others is something like: “Is your argument purely that there isn’t enough steering going on, or is it also that you disagree with the current direction of steering?” And I think, to be fair, that it’s also partly the latter for me, at least on some very specific domains.
But one response to that is that, yes, I disagree with some of the current steering – but a necessary condition for changing direction is that people talk/care/focus more on steering, so I’m going to make the case for that first.
Thanks again for your comment!