I don’t want this to seem like it’s directed at this post in particular, but more a general class of things on see on EA Forum, and this just happened to finally trigger the thought for me.
Calls to action like this for things that aren’t broadly accepted as core EA areas would benefit substantially from including links to reminding us why we should care about this.
Like, if someone posts about x-risk or global poverty or animal welfare or something like that, I’m like, sure, seems on topic and relevant to EAs because there’s broad agreement that this thing is solidly within EA and, even if individual EAs choose not to work on it, there’s not a major dispute this is potentially effective, only disagreements about how much it matters relative to other things.
But when I see things about mental health of systematic change or, in this case, election reform, I’m left wondering when this became an EA concern. In this case, I have no idea if approval voting is actually better in terms of outcomes; I just know it’s something people like because they feel like it better reflects their preferences.
Including a link at least to why election reform might be an effective cause area would be helpful for things like this that are calls to action. I dare say it should even really be a norm on the forum: if you’re making a call to action, you need to at least include links to where you’re making the case that it’s an effective cause area.
Again, this is not especially directed at the content of this post, but it did make me realize it would be nice if we could address this more broadly.
I don’t want this to seem like it’s directed at this post in particular, but more a general class of things on see on EA Forum, and this just happened to finally trigger the thought for me.
Calls to action like this for things that aren’t broadly accepted as core EA areas would benefit substantially from including links to reminding us why we should care about this.
Like, if someone posts about x-risk or global poverty or animal welfare or something like that, I’m like, sure, seems on topic and relevant to EAs because there’s broad agreement that this thing is solidly within EA and, even if individual EAs choose not to work on it, there’s not a major dispute this is potentially effective, only disagreements about how much it matters relative to other things.
But when I see things about mental health of systematic change or, in this case, election reform, I’m left wondering when this became an EA concern. In this case, I have no idea if approval voting is actually better in terms of outcomes; I just know it’s something people like because they feel like it better reflects their preferences.
Including a link at least to why election reform might be an effective cause area would be helpful for things like this that are calls to action. I dare say it should even really be a norm on the forum: if you’re making a call to action, you need to at least include links to where you’re making the case that it’s an effective cause area.
Again, this is not especially directed at the content of this post, but it did make me realize it would be nice if we could address this more broadly.
Thanks Gordon for this helpful criticism. I will try to include such links on future posts. (Please don’t hesitate to call me out if I fail to do so.) Here is a link about Open Philanthropy’s support of approval voting, and a talk on approval voting at EA Global London. Thanks again.