The standard examples of naive effective altruism are maybe lies and theft for the greater good. But there are other and less salient examples. Here I want to discuss one of them: the potential tendency to be overly conflict-oriented. There are several ways this may occur.
First, people may neglect the costs of conflict—that it’s psychologically draining for them and for others, that it reduces the potential for future collaboration, that it may harm community culture, and so on. Typically, you enter into a conflict because you think that some individual or organisation is making a poor decision—e.g. that reduces impact. My hunch is that people often decide to take the conflict because they exclusively focus on this (supposed) direct impact cost, and don’t consider the costs of the conflict itself.
Second, people often have unrealistic expectations of how others will react to criticism. Rightly or wrongly, people tend to feel that their projects are their own, and that others can only have so much of a say over them. They can take a certain amount of criticism, but if they feel that you’re invading their territory too much, they will typically find you abrasive. And they will react adversely.
Third, overconfidence may lead you to think that a decision is obviously flawed, where there’s actually reasonable disagreement. That can make you push more than you should.
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These considerations don’t mean that you should never enter into a conflict. Of course you should. Exactly when to do so is a tricky problem. All I want to say is that we should be aware that there’s a risk that we enter into too many conflicts if we apply effective altruism naively.
I’ve written a blog post on naive effective altruism and conflict.
A very useful concept is naive effective altruism. The naive effective altruist fails to take some important social or psychological considerations into account. Therefore, they may end up doing harm, rather than good.
The standard examples of naive effective altruism are maybe lies and theft for the greater good. But there are other and less salient examples. Here I want to discuss one of them: the potential tendency to be overly conflict-oriented. There are several ways this may occur.
First, people may neglect the costs of conflict—that it’s psychologically draining for them and for others, that it reduces the potential for future collaboration, that it may harm community culture, and so on. Typically, you enter into a conflict because you think that some individual or organisation is making a poor decision—e.g. that reduces impact. My hunch is that people often decide to take the conflict because they exclusively focus on this (supposed) direct impact cost, and don’t consider the costs of the conflict itself.
Second, people often have unrealistic expectations of how others will react to criticism. Rightly or wrongly, people tend to feel that their projects are their own, and that others can only have so much of a say over them. They can take a certain amount of criticism, but if they feel that you’re invading their territory too much, they will typically find you abrasive. And they will react adversely.
Third, overconfidence may lead you to think that a decision is obviously flawed, where there’s actually reasonable disagreement. That can make you push more than you should.
*
These considerations don’t mean that you should never enter into a conflict. Of course you should. Exactly when to do so is a tricky problem. All I want to say is that we should be aware that there’s a risk that we enter into too many conflicts if we apply effective altruism naively.