Hi not-an-ea. I completely agree with you when you say that some aspects of my article are problematic!
From my perspective, many of the claims that I made seem very reasonable. This is because I researched all these issues well and I know a lot about Latin America and Its people. I lived all my life here, after all.
The problem is that I tried to do a very brief summary here, so I didn’t offer all the evidence to back up my claims. I merely talked about what I think based on my knowledge so far.
If there is enough interest on this topic, I would be willing to write a “full report”, including most of my arguments and evidence for my claims.
So the author tries for a mere five months to convey something and change the world, and concludes s/he has seen enough to title an introspective article as “Why EA won’t succeed in Spanish-speaking countries yet”
In fact, five months of work is a decent time frame to evaluate what is the future of the project and how the public responds.
The title also doesn’t seem as extreme when you consider that sadly I’m the only EA writer in the entire continent of Latin America. If I stop writing and working on this, then the movement can’t succeed in Latin America yet. It’s literally impossible for it to succeed because it depends on me for now. A new writer may show up but it seems very unlikely to happen in the next few months.
The title is true, but I shouldn’t have done it. You are right when you say that it may be problematic.
Why would I take a cause seriously if its advocates are so unrealistic as to expect society to show visible change so easily?
I didn’t expect society to show visible change easily. I’ve been keeping a very close eye on how the public responded to each of our texts about EA and I concluded that it was going to be very tough and that I could do better things for now.
Incidentally, while I didn’t expect animal activists to change easily with the work of a mere five months, they really changed a lot. It was a huge change in the education and ideas of animal activists of Chile and Argentina. Those fast changes really surprised me. We hit a nerve there. With EA, however, we didn’t. The difference between the public’s response towards effective animal activism and EA focused on global poverty was like night and day.
I understand very well what failed, why it failed and how to present the case for EA in Spanish-speaking countries in a better way. I talk a bit about this in some other comments on this article, and I will talk about it in more detail in other texts.
I truly hope that you join effective altruism. You seem like a very smart person, and your comment was useful. If you don’t like the thoughts on this article and my comments, please remember that I don’t represent the whole movement :)
I am not even clear where you stand. For example, you say in another comment that the title is misleading but here you say:
The title is true, but I shouldn’t have done it. You are right when you say that it may be problematic.
I come from a very different background. I know many people who have devoted their lives to understand the terrain and work on social change and mindset change. I am one of them. I and my peers still find that our work throws up surprises and insights. We try, we fail, we try again slightly differently, fail differently, and the cycle goes on. And so I feel pretty disconnected with your levels of assertiveness and confidence.
I was not aware that just living in a country for a few decades (including childhood) and working on a cause for a few months can make anyone such an expert about all people in that and similar countries and that this short duration can enable enough data gathering and opinions and thoughts to reach drastic conclusions. Or to arrive at a perfect approach to use the next time around.
As I said, this is an interesting insight into EA thinking and working. It confirms to me, among other things, that EA is not for diffident plodders like me. The communication gap is so high I don’t think there is much point in me in engaging any further.
It’s a shame that you think that EA isn’t for you. We could use more people like you.
Please remember that I don’t represent the whole movement. If you can and you are interested, It would be nice if you could look what other EAs have to say. You may like it a lot more.
Hi not-an-ea. I completely agree with you when you say that some aspects of my article are problematic!
From my perspective, many of the claims that I made seem very reasonable. This is because I researched all these issues well and I know a lot about Latin America and Its people. I lived all my life here, after all.
The problem is that I tried to do a very brief summary here, so I didn’t offer all the evidence to back up my claims. I merely talked about what I think based on my knowledge so far.
If there is enough interest on this topic, I would be willing to write a “full report”, including most of my arguments and evidence for my claims.
In fact, five months of work is a decent time frame to evaluate what is the future of the project and how the public responds.
The title also doesn’t seem as extreme when you consider that sadly I’m the only EA writer in the entire continent of Latin America. If I stop writing and working on this, then the movement can’t succeed in Latin America yet. It’s literally impossible for it to succeed because it depends on me for now. A new writer may show up but it seems very unlikely to happen in the next few months.
The title is true, but I shouldn’t have done it. You are right when you say that it may be problematic.
I didn’t expect society to show visible change easily. I’ve been keeping a very close eye on how the public responded to each of our texts about EA and I concluded that it was going to be very tough and that I could do better things for now.
Incidentally, while I didn’t expect animal activists to change easily with the work of a mere five months, they really changed a lot. It was a huge change in the education and ideas of animal activists of Chile and Argentina. Those fast changes really surprised me. We hit a nerve there. With EA, however, we didn’t. The difference between the public’s response towards effective animal activism and EA focused on global poverty was like night and day.
I understand very well what failed, why it failed and how to present the case for EA in Spanish-speaking countries in a better way. I talk a bit about this in some other comments on this article, and I will talk about it in more detail in other texts.
I truly hope that you join effective altruism. You seem like a very smart person, and your comment was useful. If you don’t like the thoughts on this article and my comments, please remember that I don’t represent the whole movement :)
I must confess I am even more confused now.
I am not even clear where you stand. For example, you say in another comment that the title is misleading but here you say:
I come from a very different background. I know many people who have devoted their lives to understand the terrain and work on social change and mindset change. I am one of them. I and my peers still find that our work throws up surprises and insights. We try, we fail, we try again slightly differently, fail differently, and the cycle goes on. And so I feel pretty disconnected with your levels of assertiveness and confidence.
I was not aware that just living in a country for a few decades (including childhood) and working on a cause for a few months can make anyone such an expert about all people in that and similar countries and that this short duration can enable enough data gathering and opinions and thoughts to reach drastic conclusions. Or to arrive at a perfect approach to use the next time around.
As I said, this is an interesting insight into EA thinking and working. It confirms to me, among other things, that EA is not for diffident plodders like me. The communication gap is so high I don’t think there is much point in me in engaging any further.
Thanks for responding.
It’s a shame that you think that EA isn’t for you. We could use more people like you.
Please remember that I don’t represent the whole movement. If you can and you are interested, It would be nice if you could look what other EAs have to say. You may like it a lot more.