This sounds interesting, though I feel slightly confused. I can see why socialism would be a useful thing to know about, but not why it’s so much more interesting and useful than, e.g., neoliberalism. I’d also be pretty interested to hear more about how it relates to EA’s historical and cultural influences. I guess you’re right that I don’t even know what the right questions to ask about this are.
If this work is as important as you say here then it seems like a lot of value is being left on the table. Seems like it would be really helpful if you could write out a few bullet points of what needs to be done to get to that stage and how others might be able to help, then reach out to EA Funds or someone else with a proposal.
A mistake EA as a community made, and, again, this includes me, is to consider these ideologies and the movements they’ve inspired in mostly contemporary terms. Never mind socialism, beyond only neo-liberalism, liberalism itself in relation to EA could be the subject of its own book-length work. Here are some examples of what I mean for all of this:
John Stuart Mill is one of the fathers of utilitarianism. Along with early modern economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, he is also one of the fathers of liberalism. That’s what most in EA already know. Here is what they probably wouldn’t know and I didn’t either. While each of those intellectuals initially favoured capitalism, during their lifetimes they concluded as capitalism developed that its (presumably) inexorable tendency to concentrate wealth would generate monopolies destructive to a sufficiently free and utility-maximizing market economy. That’s why they embraced what’s called ‘liberal socialism,’ a market economy that mostly formed of small-to-medium-sized firms owned by individual owner-operators or collectively by workers.
Beyond the many scientists of the Manhattan Project and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to follow doing their utmost to minimize the chance of nuclear war, the Cold War also shaped the politics of efforts to reduce other global catastrophic risks. That included the following generations of scientists likely preventing the deaths of tens of millions by facilitating states on both sides of the Iron Curtain, be it developing a smallpox vaccine, or ratifying the 1987 Montreal Accord
Navigating the tensions between two systems like capitalism and socialism, or liberalism and Marxism, has been a necessary task to maximize marginal utility continuously undertaken by the movements that have most inspired EA for almost 200 years. That history is the history of how politics has shaped EA.
Seems like it would be really helpful if you could write out a few bullet points of what needs to be done to get to that stage and how others might be able to help.
I can figure out the steps others can take to help once I know what else to do first. I’m not confident what those steps might be but I’m not sure what you mean by what “needs to get done.” If you can clarify what you mean, that may help me know what the next step is.
Also, if you mean that I personally submit a proposal for a research grant to the EA Funds or whatever, me doing this myself would work. There are more fitting candidates than me I can ask if they’d be willing. I could also collaborate with them.
This sounds interesting, though I feel slightly confused. I can see why socialism would be a useful thing to know about, but not why it’s so much more interesting and useful than, e.g., neoliberalism. I’d also be pretty interested to hear more about how it relates to EA’s historical and cultural influences. I guess you’re right that I don’t even know what the right questions to ask about this are.
If this work is as important as you say here then it seems like a lot of value is being left on the table. Seems like it would be really helpful if you could write out a few bullet points of what needs to be done to get to that stage and how others might be able to help, then reach out to EA Funds or someone else with a proposal.
A mistake EA as a community made, and, again, this includes me, is to consider these ideologies and the movements they’ve inspired in mostly contemporary terms. Never mind socialism, beyond only neo-liberalism, liberalism itself in relation to EA could be the subject of its own book-length work. Here are some examples of what I mean for all of this:
John Stuart Mill is one of the fathers of utilitarianism. Along with early modern economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, he is also one of the fathers of liberalism. That’s what most in EA already know. Here is what they probably wouldn’t know and I didn’t either. While each of those intellectuals initially favoured capitalism, during their lifetimes they concluded as capitalism developed that its (presumably) inexorable tendency to concentrate wealth would generate monopolies destructive to a sufficiently free and utility-maximizing market economy. That’s why they embraced what’s called ‘liberal socialism,’ a market economy that mostly formed of small-to-medium-sized firms owned by individual owner-operators or collectively by workers.
Beyond the many scientists of the Manhattan Project and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to follow doing their utmost to minimize the chance of nuclear war, the Cold War also shaped the politics of efforts to reduce other global catastrophic risks. That included the following generations of scientists likely preventing the deaths of tens of millions by facilitating states on both sides of the Iron Curtain, be it developing a smallpox vaccine, or ratifying the 1987 Montreal Accord
Navigating the tensions between two systems like capitalism and socialism, or liberalism and Marxism, has been a necessary task to maximize marginal utility continuously undertaken by the movements that have most inspired EA for almost 200 years. That history is the history of how politics has shaped EA.
I can figure out the steps others can take to help once I know what else to do first. I’m not confident what those steps might be but I’m not sure what you mean by what “needs to get done.” If you can clarify what you mean, that may help me know what the next step is.
Also, if you mean that I personally submit a proposal for a research grant to the EA Funds or whatever, me doing this myself would work. There are more fitting candidates than me I can ask if they’d be willing. I could also collaborate with them.