I found this helpful, I’m in a similar situation of moving from “social justice” (mainly concerned with homelessness in my own city) to Effective Altruism, and so am trying to think of good ways to engage people/slightly concerned that if we don’t phrase things in the correct way the left may try to destroy us.
I wonder if talking about the causes of international economic inequality makes it seem more like an issue of injustice to be addressed from a progressive/social justice framework? That’s one way I’d frame the issue when talking about EA principles to a left-of-centre audience. I don’t subscribe to a zero-sum view of development in which all wealth is taken from someone else, but it’s undeniable that most currently wealthy nations benefitted from colonialism at the expense of the rest of the world, and we all continue to participate in an economic system that is pretty clearly constructed to benefit multinational corporations rather than individual producers. I’d also argue that donating to effective charity should at least be part of living an ethical lifestyle, and that many of the other issues people may find more emotionally compelling, like human trafficking and exploitative employment, are primarily rooted in poverty.
I also point out how basically everyone in the audience is in the top 10% globally, although I feel like this is probably less effective when talking to students since their wealth is mostly in the future. I’ve also found that the very progressive idea that everyone should be treated equally is one argument in favour of international aid, that x100 multiplier goes a long way! However, it is difficult to convince people that life for the poorest 10% of people in the world really is a lot worse than life for the poorest 10% of people in a wealthy country, although access to food, medicine and housing is probably the area that makes this clearest.
Also, use emotional appeals, although that’s just good advice when trying to persuade humans generally, although ideally use this to support rather than instead of facts and evidence, because we probably can’t win solely based on emotional appeals. This is obviously easiest in the context of global health, AMF has loads of pictures of smiling children holding mosquito nets, and GiveDirectly has loads of personal stories of how people actually spent the money.
I found this helpful, I’m in a similar situation of moving from “social justice” (mainly concerned with homelessness in my own city) to Effective Altruism, and so am trying to think of good ways to engage people/slightly concerned that if we don’t phrase things in the correct way the left may try to destroy us.
I wonder if talking about the causes of international economic inequality makes it seem more like an issue of injustice to be addressed from a progressive/social justice framework? That’s one way I’d frame the issue when talking about EA principles to a left-of-centre audience. I don’t subscribe to a zero-sum view of development in which all wealth is taken from someone else, but it’s undeniable that most currently wealthy nations benefitted from colonialism at the expense of the rest of the world, and we all continue to participate in an economic system that is pretty clearly constructed to benefit multinational corporations rather than individual producers. I’d also argue that donating to effective charity should at least be part of living an ethical lifestyle, and that many of the other issues people may find more emotionally compelling, like human trafficking and exploitative employment, are primarily rooted in poverty.
I also point out how basically everyone in the audience is in the top 10% globally, although I feel like this is probably less effective when talking to students since their wealth is mostly in the future. I’ve also found that the very progressive idea that everyone should be treated equally is one argument in favour of international aid, that x100 multiplier goes a long way! However, it is difficult to convince people that life for the poorest 10% of people in the world really is a lot worse than life for the poorest 10% of people in a wealthy country, although access to food, medicine and housing is probably the area that makes this clearest.
Also, use emotional appeals, although that’s just good advice when trying to persuade humans generally, although ideally use this to support rather than instead of facts and evidence, because we probably can’t win solely based on emotional appeals. This is obviously easiest in the context of global health, AMF has loads of pictures of smiling children holding mosquito nets, and GiveDirectly has loads of personal stories of how people actually spent the money.