In the social justice community, we’d phrase this as “fighting the -isms.” Typically, it’s fighting against the well-known phenomena of racism, sexism, classism, etc., but we can also include:
locationism (bias on the basis of location, usually against the developing world or just individuals outside our home country)
speciesism (bias on the basis of species, usually against nonhumans)
generationism (bias on the basis of time period, usually against future individuals)
Identifying ourselves in this category increases our credibility with other altruistic causes and is a good way of explaining ourselves to individuals outside our community.
Identifying ourselves in this category increases our credibility with other altruistic causes and is a good way of explaining ourselves to individuals outside our community.
It might be a good way of explaining ourselves to social justice warriors. But a rather poor way of explaining ourselves to those who are triggered by social justice. Given that I expect that conservatives are under-represented among EAs, I think we should probably avoid going out of our way to alienate them any further.
Hm, as someone who grew up in a rural, conservative town, I’ve never heard of social justice lingo like racism or sexism alienating people in a relevant way. I think the issues come in with more extreme ideas like radical feminism or exclusively race-based affirmative action. I think people generally have a sturdy psychological barrier between the mainstream social justice material and the more extreme, possibly triggering material.
Given that I expect that conservatives are under-represented among EAs, I think we should probably avoid going out of our way to alienate them any further.
I’d like to see more discussion about who our target audience is as EAs. I’d guess it’s more of the social justice/altruism crowd rather than conservatives, even if conservatives are currently under-represented. I often think it’s the intelligentsia of some sort, which is relatively liberal. Although if we’re reaching out towards ‘old money’ for philanthropy purposes, this might be different.
I’m going to be honest, the target audience is privileged liberals for the most part, i.e. people with unexceptional centre to centre-left politics, with an enormous (relative to history and the world) amount of wealth, education and so forth, with a certain moralism about them. That composition is not flattering, being mostly white graduates or academics from the USA/UK, but is necessarily so for a world-view turning on giving away ones money and/or doing high-level research into how to give away ones money.
But introducing new and unusual-sounding terms like locationism and speciesism is presumably more likely to be associated with the extreme ideas than the mainstream.
I find the this kind of rationalization—subordinating ones ethics to what can effectively motivate people to altruism—both profoundly conservative and, to some extent, undignified and inhuman, i.e. the utility slave coming full circle to enslave their own dictate of utility maximisation.
In the social justice community, we’d phrase this as “fighting the -isms.” Typically, it’s fighting against the well-known phenomena of racism, sexism, classism, etc., but we can also include:
locationism (bias on the basis of location, usually against the developing world or just individuals outside our home country)
speciesism (bias on the basis of species, usually against nonhumans)
generationism (bias on the basis of time period, usually against future individuals)
Identifying ourselves in this category increases our credibility with other altruistic causes and is a good way of explaining ourselves to individuals outside our community.
“All people have equal value; not all charities.”
It might be a good way of explaining ourselves to social justice warriors. But a rather poor way of explaining ourselves to those who are triggered by social justice. Given that I expect that conservatives are under-represented among EAs, I think we should probably avoid going out of our way to alienate them any further.
BTW, the term “social justice warrior” is generally considered derogatory.
Hm, as someone who grew up in a rural, conservative town, I’ve never heard of social justice lingo like racism or sexism alienating people in a relevant way. I think the issues come in with more extreme ideas like radical feminism or exclusively race-based affirmative action. I think people generally have a sturdy psychological barrier between the mainstream social justice material and the more extreme, possibly triggering material.
I’d like to see more discussion about who our target audience is as EAs. I’d guess it’s more of the social justice/altruism crowd rather than conservatives, even if conservatives are currently under-represented. I often think it’s the intelligentsia of some sort, which is relatively liberal. Although if we’re reaching out towards ‘old money’ for philanthropy purposes, this might be different.
I’m going to be honest, the target audience is privileged liberals for the most part, i.e. people with unexceptional centre to centre-left politics, with an enormous (relative to history and the world) amount of wealth, education and so forth, with a certain moralism about them. That composition is not flattering, being mostly white graduates or academics from the USA/UK, but is necessarily so for a world-view turning on giving away ones money and/or doing high-level research into how to give away ones money.
But introducing new and unusual-sounding terms like locationism and speciesism is presumably more likely to be associated with the extreme ideas than the mainstream.
Yep.
I find the this kind of rationalization—subordinating ones ethics to what can effectively motivate people to altruism—both profoundly conservative and, to some extent, undignified and inhuman, i.e. the utility slave coming full circle to enslave their own dictate of utility maximisation.