First, if the EA movement genuinely aspires to cause-neutrality, then we should care about benefits that accrue to others regardless of who these other people are and independent of what the causal route to these benefits is. As such, we should also care about the benefits that becoming a diverse and inclusive movement would have for women, people of color, and disabled and trans people in and outside of the community.
Aside from the direct question of cause prioritization which has already been mentioned, I think it’s bad to be explicitly self-serving. Even if the concept would technically work out in the grand calculus, it’s better for social-moral reasons to not treat ourselves as ultimate ends. It runs counter to the idea of an altruist movement.
if the EA community fails to become more diverse and inclusive we’ll suffer reputation costs in the media, in academia, among progressives, and in the nonprofit world for being a community that is exclusionary
The people who get bothered along these lines to such a degree—as in, they think negatively of EA for being “exclusionary” just because we don’t do enough catering and decide to condemn it—are not a substantial proportion of media, academia, or the broad liberal political sphere. They are a small group of people who care more about tribal politics than they do about ethical work, and they won’t turn around and cooperate just because you want to get along with them. In the long run, it’s bad to fall victim to these kinds of heckler’s vetoes. (The phrase “negotiating with terrorists” comes to mind.)
Aside from the direct question of cause prioritization which has already been mentioned, I think it’s bad to be explicitly self-serving. Even if the concept would technically work out in the grand calculus, it’s better for social-moral reasons to not treat ourselves as ultimate ends. It runs counter to the idea of an altruist movement.
The people who get bothered along these lines to such a degree—as in, they think negatively of EA for being “exclusionary” just because we don’t do enough catering and decide to condemn it—are not a substantial proportion of media, academia, or the broad liberal political sphere. They are a small group of people who care more about tribal politics than they do about ethical work, and they won’t turn around and cooperate just because you want to get along with them. In the long run, it’s bad to fall victim to these kinds of heckler’s vetoes. (The phrase “negotiating with terrorists” comes to mind.)