Thanks for the comment, Peter. I agree that we couldn’t get broad popular agreement on which political party is the better one, but I’m pretty sure we could get about 50% agreement! In the UK at least, people who get into EA are usually either on the left or don’t have political leanings (though with some notable exceptions, like Ben Hoskin). So I think that if you promoted funding GOTV for the Democrats/Labour, you’d only alienate something like 10% of potential EAs.
And we wouldn’t need to put massive amounts of time into it. Even a first-pass guess at a charity that seems particularly good for both the home nation and the world would generate most of the benefits I list above. (I think that many people would also be much happier donating to foreign countries if it also benefited the home country).
Agree on GW labs, though I think that geoengineering research, open science, 80k, xrisk reduction, are even less likely to get taken seriously than political funding.
Also, I should have said I’m not suggesting this as “the most important thing to be doing right now”—just something I think would be worthwhile that I used to think wouldn’t have been worthwhile.
Thanks for the comment, Peter. I agree that we couldn’t get broad popular agreement on which political party is the better one, but I’m pretty sure we could get about 50% agreement! In the UK at least, people who get into EA are usually either on the left or don’t have political leanings (though with some notable exceptions, like Ben Hoskin). So I think that if you promoted funding GOTV for the Democrats/Labour, you’d only alienate something like 10% of potential EAs.
And we wouldn’t need to put massive amounts of time into it. Even a first-pass guess at a charity that seems particularly good for both the home nation and the world would generate most of the benefits I list above. (I think that many people would also be much happier donating to foreign countries if it also benefited the home country).
Agree on GW labs, though I think that geoengineering research, open science, 80k, xrisk reduction, are even less likely to get taken seriously than political funding.
Also, I should have said I’m not suggesting this as “the most important thing to be doing right now”—just something I think would be worthwhile that I used to think wouldn’t have been worthwhile.