Strong upvote. I’m a former leftist and I’ve got a soft spot for a few unique ideas in their memeplex. I read our leftist critics whenever I can because I want them to hit the quality target I know the ideas are worth in my mind, but they never do.
If anyone reading this knows leftist critics that you think have hit a reasonable quality bar or you want to coauthor a piece for the contest where we roleplay as leftists, DM me on the forum or otherwise hit me up.
I consider myself a current leftist, and I honestly don’t have a big “leftist critique of ea”. Effective altruism seems uncomplicatedly good according to all the ideas I have that I consider “leftist”, and leftism similarly seems good according to all the ideas that I consider EA.
Effective altruists as individuals aren’t always radical leftist of course, though they are pretty much all left of center. If you press me to come up with criticisms of EA, I can think of harmful statements or actions made by high profile individuals to critique, I guess, though idk if that would be useful to anyone involved. I can also say that the community as a whole doesn’t particularly escape the structural problems and interpersonal prejudices found in larger society—but it’s certainly not any worse than larger society. Also EA organizations, are not totally immune to power and corruption and internal politics and things like that, these things could be pointed out too. What I am saying is, effective altruists and institutions aren’t immune from things like racism and sexism and stuff like that. But that’s true of most people and organizations, including leftist ones. But there’s nothing that un-leftist about effective altruism, the ideology.
If the whole idea is that you’re impartially treating everyone equally and doing the most you can to help them then that’s… almost tautologically and by definition, good, from almost all reasonable political perspectives, leftist or otherwise? I think you really gotta make some stronger and more specific claims which touch upon a leftist angle, if you want someone to refute them from a leftist angle.
Strong upvote. I’m a former leftist and I’ve got a soft spot for a few unique ideas in their memeplex. I read our leftist critics whenever I can because I want them to hit the quality target I know the ideas are worth in my mind, but they never do.
If anyone reading this knows leftist critics that you think have hit a reasonable quality bar or you want to coauthor a piece for the contest where we roleplay as leftists, DM me on the forum or otherwise hit me up.
I consider myself a current leftist, and I honestly don’t have a big “leftist critique of ea”. Effective altruism seems uncomplicatedly good according to all the ideas I have that I consider “leftist”, and leftism similarly seems good according to all the ideas that I consider EA.
Effective altruists as individuals aren’t always radical leftist of course, though they are pretty much all left of center. If you press me to come up with criticisms of EA, I can think of harmful statements or actions made by high profile individuals to critique, I guess, though idk if that would be useful to anyone involved. I can also say that the community as a whole doesn’t particularly escape the structural problems and interpersonal prejudices found in larger society—but it’s certainly not any worse than larger society. Also EA organizations, are not totally immune to power and corruption and internal politics and things like that, these things could be pointed out too. What I am saying is, effective altruists and institutions aren’t immune from things like racism and sexism and stuff like that. But that’s true of most people and organizations, including leftist ones. But there’s nothing that un-leftist about effective altruism, the ideology.
If the whole idea is that you’re impartially treating everyone equally and doing the most you can to help them then that’s… almost tautologically and by definition, good, from almost all reasonable political perspectives, leftist or otherwise? I think you really gotta make some stronger and more specific claims which touch upon a leftist angle, if you want someone to refute them from a leftist angle.
Hey, I’ve written up a post along these lines. If you’re still interested: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oD3zus6LhbhBj6z2F/red-teaming-contest-demographics-and-power-structures-in-ea