Relatedly, one thing I’ve been thinking about since posting this is how much Distinction feels relevant to EA (though I’m hesitant to cite continental philosophy on the EA Forum of all places!)
I think specifically, EA sometimes concentrates different types of power (e.g. financial, cultural/social, etc) into funders, and doing that is inherently distorting. E.g. I’m thinking about things like: having funders be keynote speakers at events, etc. that elevates funder social position relative to other people.
My experience of the animal welfare space, say, where the deference issues don’t come up as much (though has plenty of other funder-related issues!) is that the funders have lots of financial power, but besides two specific people, aren’t given much social/cultural power, and most the social/cultural power is held by people who don’t distribute funding. I also have heard of things like funders being considered for speaking at conferences, and people pushing back on it a bit out of these kinds of concerns. I think maybe some more healthy skepticism about mixing power types could be helpful?
Yeah, that is a great point.
Relatedly, one thing I’ve been thinking about since posting this is how much Distinction feels relevant to EA (though I’m hesitant to cite continental philosophy on the EA Forum of all places!)
I think specifically, EA sometimes concentrates different types of power (e.g. financial, cultural/social, etc) into funders, and doing that is inherently distorting. E.g. I’m thinking about things like: having funders be keynote speakers at events, etc. that elevates funder social position relative to other people.
My experience of the animal welfare space, say, where the deference issues don’t come up as much (though has plenty of other funder-related issues!) is that the funders have lots of financial power, but besides two specific people, aren’t given much social/cultural power, and most the social/cultural power is held by people who don’t distribute funding. I also have heard of things like funders being considered for speaking at conferences, and people pushing back on it a bit out of these kinds of concerns. I think maybe some more healthy skepticism about mixing power types could be helpful?