Thanks for writing this, I think this topic is worthy of more discussion.
Of course, this does not consider important tradeoffs, such as the potential for alienating other audiences. This will therefore be most useful to people whose primary audience is progressives.
I wonder how much we should even recommend leaning into the progressive/social justice framing when the audience primarily comes from this ideological bent.
I often find talk about privilege unproductive and used in a hostile/shaming kind of way and feel mixed about suggesting that this is part of the motivation of EA (which I prefer seeing as sth. like „we share the desire to help others and improve the world as much as possible“) and bringing more people with that mindset into EA
people that are not from the social justice bent might be especially worthy to attract in situations where progressives are the main audience, in order to gain intellectual diversity
If I’d read this testimonial on the local EA website, there’d be a solid chance I‘d have been significantly less interested because it doesn’t connect to my altruistic motivations and (in my head) strongly signals a political ideology.
For me, taking the Giving What We Can pledge was an expression of my commitment to using my class privilege to contributed to a movement towards a more equitable world for current and future generations
I think some points you mention, like highlighting more that aid recipients’ feedback is strongly taken into account, don’t risk turning off non-social justice people while still connecting to their motivation and worries, so maybe I’d wish to see more of that kind.
I think “The Privilege of Earning to Give” by Jeff Kaufman (who I’m married to) helped bridge a gap between us and our non-EA friends, who tend to have much more standard leftist views than we do.
Thanks for writing this, I think this topic is worthy of more discussion.
I wonder how much we should even recommend leaning into the progressive/social justice framing when the audience primarily comes from this ideological bent.
I often find talk about privilege unproductive and used in a hostile/shaming kind of way and feel mixed about suggesting that this is part of the motivation of EA (which I prefer seeing as sth. like „we share the desire to help others and improve the world as much as possible“) and bringing more people with that mindset into EA
people that are not from the social justice bent might be especially worthy to attract in situations where progressives are the main audience, in order to gain intellectual diversity
If I’d read this testimonial on the local EA website, there’d be a solid chance I‘d have been significantly less interested because it doesn’t connect to my altruistic motivations and (in my head) strongly signals a political ideology.
I think some points you mention, like highlighting more that aid recipients’ feedback is strongly taken into account, don’t risk turning off non-social justice people while still connecting to their motivation and worries, so maybe I’d wish to see more of that kind.
I think “The Privilege of Earning to Give” by Jeff Kaufman (who I’m married to) helped bridge a gap between us and our non-EA friends, who tend to have much more standard leftist views than we do.