I can count at least three types of public participation here --
Talking to your friends and family (both in person and through one’s own personal social media).
Discussing things in a community of like-minded people (e.g., here).
Discussing things in broader public spaces (e.g., most of Reddit).
(3) is the easiest to dispose of in my view. Although surely people have changed their minds about things on Reddit and in similar places given their massive size, I get the impression that debate subreddits and the like accomplish very little for the amount of effort people pour into them. People generally aren’t going into these kinds of spaces with open minds. And the anecdotal poll you mentioned was conducted on Reddit; a truly random poll would presumably find online debate / discussion spaces to be even less important.
In contrast, people do make progress in like-minded spaces (2). But given that you find these spaces draining, the risk of them burning you out and distracting you from more effective activity presumably exceeds any sort of marginal benefit from active participation. No one can do everything. Each person has different aptitudes, passions, and limitations that influence what actions are best suited to them. It sounds like yours are not well aligned to active participation in discussions, and that’s fine. It’s important that someone conduct in-depth research, communicate it, and discuss it, but it’s not important that any given person does so (especially if it doesn’t align with their aptitudes, passions, and limitations).
As far as being up to date, I think it’s fine to find someone you trust and defer to their judgment as to donation targets. There are respectable reasons to think the end results would be better than trying to do your own research—especially if you’re not feeling motivated to do in-depth research and analysis.
That leaves (1), which is neither of limited utility like in (3) nor can others clearly substitute as in (2). It would be ideal if you could briefly mention certain things without feeling preachy, moralizing, or cringe. And it might make you feel better in the long run to take small steps to be publicly living in accordance with your values—not trying to “convert” other people, but not hiding those values in shame either. Maybe a post on your social media linking to (e.g.) GiveWell and identifying yourself as a donor could be a step in that direction?[1] if anyone thinks that “overly self-identified,” that’s a them problem, not a you problem! But I wouldn’t say it is ethically insufficient to be quiet.
Others may have more helpful things to say about how to identify as a vegan in ways that you’d find not too uncomfortable. Whether justified or not, vegans do have a reputation in some circles as being “preachy, moralizing, or overly self-identified by” their veganism. As far as I know, effective givers do not have that kind of general reputation, and posting about a charity to which you donate is a normal thing for people to do at least in my non-EA social circles.
First of all, I fully agree with your third point that it feels incredibly draining to talk about (3).
Second, I totally get your point on number 2 that there are enough people conducting research and that there is plenty of supply and there isn’t a necessity for others to conduct research (although a sufficient amount should research to prevent it from being heavily swayed by a few people).
Third, I can’t help but feel like there must be some sort of big difference between a charity publicly advertising things vs. a person publicly advertising for free. I feel like for a charity advertising, there are proven metrics that must prove that it generates more money from the charity than it consumes for advertising. To be honest, I do dislike the fact that charities have to use money on non-directly related matters to aid, but it makes sense that sometimes you have to burn money to make more to get aid (at the end of the day, a charity that uses all money for direct aid but has no publicity is effectively useless. Similarly, a charity that hardly directs money to direct aid for like but instead uses 70% of its funding it on stupid bureaucratic stuff is also pretty useless). However, in the scope of a person spreading it on social media, I feel like there is a very your mileage may vary type of scenario. From my personal experience, I don’t think anybody in my social media would care about either veganism or effective altruism. Like to be honest, without giving too much personal information, I am still relatively new to my career and so are most of my friends. I do see on Facebook posts etc to donate to this charity for my birthday which I think is a Facebook feature but I can see that literally nobody donates to those posts. I have been recently liking posts regarding Giving What We Can on Instagram and initially I did it thinking that it could lead to more awareness to my Instagram friends especially if I decided to only like those posts and no other posts, but I can’t help but feel like I’m ruining my own feed for an ultimately futile effort. In particular, one thing I notice about EA posts on Instagram and I am guessing other social media is it seems to have a low like rate. I can’t help but feel like the whole 10% pledge (especially the way some advertisements talk about it as if its some sort of easy thing to do for everyone) especially turns off people from EA making it feel like some sort of cult or something. To be honest, I have been recently seeing more Giving What We Can sponsored ads on Instagram and I can’t help but wonder if its money well spent or of its being wasted (I get the importance of advertisements but can’t help but feel most people won’t care). Truthfully, I think most people are usually distrustful towards things like EA and veganism because it definitely in some ways doesn’t really feel natural for a person to care so much about things that don’t directly impact them to the point that people find it suspicious. In general, I used to donate like 10% of my income to EA charities but my parents found out and completely disapproved and since I am just starting my career I decided to pause for now but like I definitely don’t want to advertise something I am not even doing and I really don’t think reposting and retweeting something within my local community regarding EA would really make a difference. Same, regarding vegans, at best I think most people don’t care if some one is a vegan or not and wouldn’t care about changing their eating habits. At worst, people will be more so turned off from associating with those people. Admittedly, I live in the Bay Area where I feel compared to the other places in the United States people would be much more tolerant towards concepts like EA and especially veganism. But I can’t help but feel that dedicating time and energy to spread awareness on social media regarding EA will feel like a waste of time kind of like I am talking to a brick wall. I honestly feel like I would have more success being a Jehova’s Witness instead (this is said as kind of a joke, but I am being kind of serious that neither would be particularly popular among the people I associate with).
One of the reasons I am asking this question is because I feel like there is a gigantic move to be very public regarding donations (not because humbleness is a vice but because some people believe it can influence others to donate as well). I heard some people even put the orange diamond emoji in their social media bios or what not (which I feel kind of stupid because 99% of normal people will have no idea its EA related and think its just another unnecessary emoji in a bio). I don’t know but spending time and energy talking about EA in social media almost feels as futile as say talking about BLM : https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/19/nobody-is-perfect-everything-is-commensurable/
Its like just like some people don’t like talking about politics or religion, I don’t feel like talking about said topics in fear of making it seem like I’m asking others to convert to my philosophy or something like that.
I can’t help but wonder if one can argue its ethically sufficient to just donate and participate in EA type activities like veganism without being really open and public about those topics. I don’t want to turn my entire social media feed into being an advertising center for those two topics.
Also, looking at so many ads regarding Giving What We Can, I can’t help but wonder if its generating more money than its spending.
But at the same time, I can’t help but feel curious that I am neglecting a serious moral obligation or something. In an ideal world where the conversation rate was large, I could make a much larger impact converting others to EA than being a single donor. However, I don’t think I live in such an ideal world or at least among those I associate with.
I can count at least three types of public participation here --
Talking to your friends and family (both in person and through one’s own personal social media).
Discussing things in a community of like-minded people (e.g., here).
Discussing things in broader public spaces (e.g., most of Reddit).
(3) is the easiest to dispose of in my view. Although surely people have changed their minds about things on Reddit and in similar places given their massive size, I get the impression that debate subreddits and the like accomplish very little for the amount of effort people pour into them. People generally aren’t going into these kinds of spaces with open minds. And the anecdotal poll you mentioned was conducted on Reddit; a truly random poll would presumably find online debate / discussion spaces to be even less important.
In contrast, people do make progress in like-minded spaces (2). But given that you find these spaces draining, the risk of them burning you out and distracting you from more effective activity presumably exceeds any sort of marginal benefit from active participation. No one can do everything. Each person has different aptitudes, passions, and limitations that influence what actions are best suited to them. It sounds like yours are not well aligned to active participation in discussions, and that’s fine. It’s important that someone conduct in-depth research, communicate it, and discuss it, but it’s not important that any given person does so (especially if it doesn’t align with their aptitudes, passions, and limitations).
As far as being up to date, I think it’s fine to find someone you trust and defer to their judgment as to donation targets. There are respectable reasons to think the end results would be better than trying to do your own research—especially if you’re not feeling motivated to do in-depth research and analysis.
That leaves (1), which is neither of limited utility like in (3) nor can others clearly substitute as in (2). It would be ideal if you could briefly mention certain things without feeling preachy, moralizing, or cringe. And it might make you feel better in the long run to take small steps to be publicly living in accordance with your values—not trying to “convert” other people, but not hiding those values in shame either. Maybe a post on your social media linking to (e.g.) GiveWell and identifying yourself as a donor could be a step in that direction?[1] if anyone thinks that “overly self-identified,” that’s a them problem, not a you problem! But I wouldn’t say it is ethically insufficient to be quiet.
Others may have more helpful things to say about how to identify as a vegan in ways that you’d find not too uncomfortable. Whether justified or not, vegans do have a reputation in some circles as being “preachy, moralizing, or overly self-identified by” their veganism. As far as I know, effective givers do not have that kind of general reputation, and posting about a charity to which you donate is a normal thing for people to do at least in my non-EA social circles.
Hi, thanks for the response.
First of all, I fully agree with your third point that it feels incredibly draining to talk about (3).
Second, I totally get your point on number 2 that there are enough people conducting research and that there is plenty of supply and there isn’t a necessity for others to conduct research (although a sufficient amount should research to prevent it from being heavily swayed by a few people).
Third, I can’t help but feel like there must be some sort of big difference between a charity publicly advertising things vs. a person publicly advertising for free. I feel like for a charity advertising, there are proven metrics that must prove that it generates more money from the charity than it consumes for advertising. To be honest, I do dislike the fact that charities have to use money on non-directly related matters to aid, but it makes sense that sometimes you have to burn money to make more to get aid (at the end of the day, a charity that uses all money for direct aid but has no publicity is effectively useless. Similarly, a charity that hardly directs money to direct aid for like but instead uses 70% of its funding it on stupid bureaucratic stuff is also pretty useless). However, in the scope of a person spreading it on social media, I feel like there is a very your mileage may vary type of scenario. From my personal experience, I don’t think anybody in my social media would care about either veganism or effective altruism. Like to be honest, without giving too much personal information, I am still relatively new to my career and so are most of my friends. I do see on Facebook posts etc to donate to this charity for my birthday which I think is a Facebook feature but I can see that literally nobody donates to those posts. I have been recently liking posts regarding Giving What We Can on Instagram and initially I did it thinking that it could lead to more awareness to my Instagram friends especially if I decided to only like those posts and no other posts, but I can’t help but feel like I’m ruining my own feed for an ultimately futile effort. In particular, one thing I notice about EA posts on Instagram and I am guessing other social media is it seems to have a low like rate. I can’t help but feel like the whole 10% pledge (especially the way some advertisements talk about it as if its some sort of easy thing to do for everyone) especially turns off people from EA making it feel like some sort of cult or something. To be honest, I have been recently seeing more Giving What We Can sponsored ads on Instagram and I can’t help but wonder if its money well spent or of its being wasted (I get the importance of advertisements but can’t help but feel most people won’t care). Truthfully, I think most people are usually distrustful towards things like EA and veganism because it definitely in some ways doesn’t really feel natural for a person to care so much about things that don’t directly impact them to the point that people find it suspicious. In general, I used to donate like 10% of my income to EA charities but my parents found out and completely disapproved and since I am just starting my career I decided to pause for now but like I definitely don’t want to advertise something I am not even doing and I really don’t think reposting and retweeting something within my local community regarding EA would really make a difference. Same, regarding vegans, at best I think most people don’t care if some one is a vegan or not and wouldn’t care about changing their eating habits. At worst, people will be more so turned off from associating with those people. Admittedly, I live in the Bay Area where I feel compared to the other places in the United States people would be much more tolerant towards concepts like EA and especially veganism. But I can’t help but feel that dedicating time and energy to spread awareness on social media regarding EA will feel like a waste of time kind of like I am talking to a brick wall. I honestly feel like I would have more success being a Jehova’s Witness instead (this is said as kind of a joke, but I am being kind of serious that neither would be particularly popular among the people I associate with).
One of the reasons I am asking this question is because I feel like there is a gigantic move to be very public regarding donations (not because humbleness is a vice but because some people believe it can influence others to donate as well). I heard some people even put the orange diamond emoji in their social media bios or what not (which I feel kind of stupid because 99% of normal people will have no idea its EA related and think its just another unnecessary emoji in a bio). I don’t know but spending time and energy talking about EA in social media almost feels as futile as say talking about BLM : https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/19/nobody-is-perfect-everything-is-commensurable/
Its like just like some people don’t like talking about politics or religion, I don’t feel like talking about said topics in fear of making it seem like I’m asking others to convert to my philosophy or something like that.
I can’t help but wonder if one can argue its ethically sufficient to just donate and participate in EA type activities like veganism without being really open and public about those topics. I don’t want to turn my entire social media feed into being an advertising center for those two topics.
Also, looking at so many ads regarding Giving What We Can, I can’t help but wonder if its generating more money than its spending.
But at the same time, I can’t help but feel curious that I am neglecting a serious moral obligation or something. In an ideal world where the conversation rate was large, I could make a much larger impact converting others to EA than being a single donor. However, I don’t think I live in such an ideal world or at least among those I associate with.
Sorry for the long rant.
Thanks!