I take this post to raise both practical/strategic and epistemological/moral reasons to think EAs should avoid being too exclusive or narrow in what they say “EAs should do.” Some good objections have been raised in the comments already.
Is it possible this post boils down to shifting from saying what EAs should do to what EAs should not do?
Even if you don’t think there are epistemological/moral reasons for this, there may be practical/strategic ones: A large movement that applies rationality and science to encourage all its participants to do some good may do a lot more good than a small one that uses it to do the most good.
I think that negative claims are often more polarizing than positive ones, but I agree that there is a reason to advocate for a large movement that applies science and reasoning to do some good. I just think it already exists, albeit in a more dispersed form than a single “EA-lite.” (It’s what almost every large foundation already does, for example.)
I do think that there is a clear need for an “EA-Heavy,” i.e. core EA, in which we emphasize the “most” in the phrase “do the most good.” My point here is that I think that this core group should be more willing to allow for diversity of action and approach. And in fact, I think the core of EA, the central thinkers and planners, people at CEA, Givewell, Oxford, etc. already advocate this. I just don’t think the message has been given as clearly as possible to everyone else.
I take this post to raise both practical/strategic and epistemological/moral reasons to think EAs should avoid being too exclusive or narrow in what they say “EAs should do.” Some good objections have been raised in the comments already.
Is it possible this post boils down to shifting from saying what EAs should do to what EAs should not do?
That sounds maybe intuitively unappealing and un-strategic because you’re not presenting a compelling, positive message to the outside world. But I don’t mean literally going around telling people what not to do. I mean focusing on shifting people away from clearly bad or neutral activities toward positive ones, rather than focusing so much on what the optimal paths are. I raised this before in my “low-fidelity EA” comment: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6oaxj4GxWi5vuea4o/what-s-the-low-resolution-version-of-effective-altruism?commentId=9AsgNmts2JqibdcwY
Even if you don’t think there are epistemological/moral reasons for this, there may be practical/strategic ones: A large movement that applies rationality and science to encourage all its participants to do some good may do a lot more good than a small one that uses it to do the most good.
I think that negative claims are often more polarizing than positive ones, but I agree that there is a reason to advocate for a large movement that applies science and reasoning to do some good. I just think it already exists, albeit in a more dispersed form than a single “EA-lite.” (It’s what almost every large foundation already does, for example.)
I do think that there is a clear need for an “EA-Heavy,” i.e. core EA, in which we emphasize the “most” in the phrase “do the most good.” My point here is that I think that this core group should be more willing to allow for diversity of action and approach. And in fact, I think the core of EA, the central thinkers and planners, people at CEA, Givewell, Oxford, etc. already advocate this. I just don’t think the message has been given as clearly as possible to everyone else.