In my previous post I wrote: “The existence of this would bring us into alignment with other societies, which usually have some document that describes the principles that the society stands for, and has some mechanism for ensuring that those who choose to represent themselves as part of that society abides by those principles.” I now think that’s an incorrect statement. EA, currently, is all of the following: an idea/movement, a community, and a small group of organisations. On the ‘movement’ understanding of EA, analogies of EA don’t have a community panel similar to what I suggested, and only some have ‘guiding principles’. (Though communities and organisations, or groups of organisations, often do.)
The closest analogy to what we want to do is given by the open source community: many but not all of the organisations within the open source community created their own codes of conduct, many of them very similar to each other.
William I wonder if EA is also, whether we accept this or not, a part of a wider/older historical effort?
I don’t mean just people like Esther Duflo at the MIT Poverty Lab, health economists, bottom billion / development economists, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and its social wellbeing research, Oxfam, IDS Sussex, public health people, epidemiologists and (obviously) utilitarian philosophers ….
… but also older roots such as Quakers like prison reformer Elisabeth Fry and anti-slave trade groups, or various buddhists and Christians prioritising health care, the relief of poverty etc.
Of course many of these will have been less mathematical than many modern EAs, and we could identify other differences. However all of these were to significant degrees interested in evidenced improvements and policy improvement, and some still are.
By acknowledging and exchanging with their existing knowledge bases and experiences, wouldn’t we be better placed to expand and mainstream the best that EA can offer? And be less ignorant about effective and altruistic work and research that has already been done, and lessons already learned, perhaps especially when it comes to creating and maintaining a movement?!
In my previous post I wrote: “The existence of this would bring us into alignment with other societies, which usually have some document that describes the principles that the society stands for, and has some mechanism for ensuring that those who choose to represent themselves as part of that society abides by those principles.” I now think that’s an incorrect statement. EA, currently, is all of the following: an idea/movement, a community, and a small group of organisations. On the ‘movement’ understanding of EA, analogies of EA don’t have a community panel similar to what I suggested, and only some have ‘guiding principles’. (Though communities and organisations, or groups of organisations, often do.)
Julia created a list of potential analogies here:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aXQp_9pGauMK9rKES9W3Uk3soW6c1oSx68bhDmY73p4/edit?usp=sharing].
The closest analogy to what we want to do is given by the open source community: many but not all of the organisations within the open source community created their own codes of conduct, many of them very similar to each other.
Fyi the link is no longer accesible
William I wonder if EA is also, whether we accept this or not, a part of a wider/older historical effort?
I don’t mean just people like Esther Duflo at the MIT Poverty Lab, health economists, bottom billion / development economists, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and its social wellbeing research, Oxfam, IDS Sussex, public health people, epidemiologists and (obviously) utilitarian philosophers ….
… but also older roots such as Quakers like prison reformer Elisabeth Fry and anti-slave trade groups, or various buddhists and Christians prioritising health care, the relief of poverty etc.
Of course many of these will have been less mathematical than many modern EAs, and we could identify other differences. However all of these were to significant degrees interested in evidenced improvements and policy improvement, and some still are.
By acknowledging and exchanging with their existing knowledge bases and experiences, wouldn’t we be better placed to expand and mainstream the best that EA can offer? And be less ignorant about effective and altruistic work and research that has already been done, and lessons already learned, perhaps especially when it comes to creating and maintaining a movement?!