You identify the number one issue you have with activists from demographic groups being that they are suspicious of EA motivations.
One of the major problems driving social justice fear and offense in the US right now is the failure of right-wing and centrist actors to credibly demonstrate that they’re not secretly harboring bias and hate. If I was going to pick something that activists for underrepresented demographics need to revise when they look at EA, it’s that they should stop applying their default suspicions to the people in EA.
And you claim that they shouldn’t be because 1) EA’s are trying to improve the world as much as possible, 2) EA’s make personal sacrifices for such, and 3) they accept the paradigm of philosophical and scientific rigor.
But when people are already committing to improve the well-being of the world as much as possible, and when they are making personal sacrifices to be involved in this effort, and when they are accepting our paradigm of philosophical and scientific rigor, the least you can give them is a basic element of trust regarding their beliefs and motivations.
My question: is this belief because you are an effective altruist, or because these criteria are sufficient to indicate positive intentions towards minorities 100% of the time?
An example: a devout traditionalist Buddhist male might also believe that they are trying to improve the world as much as possible, given the guidelines of their religious/spiritual tradition. They might very well also make personal sacrifices for such, and they may well be doing so in a paradigm of philosophical rigor. Buddhists might also claim that the way they achieve these things is scientifically rigorous (there’s a famous quote by the Dalai Lama where he says that if science refutes part of his teachings, the teachings must be rejected). But if said (male) Buddhist was raising questions about whether women deserve equal rights to men, does the fact he satisfies your three criterion mean we should assume he has positive and respectful intentions towards women?
We could replace Buddhism with any religious or spiritual worldview that is compatible with western science. I’m more familiar with Buddhism, which is why I make that my example.
My guess is that for most people who have read/upvoted your comment, the answer would be no. The reason would be because none of these comments reveal whether someone harbors bias or is malevolent about certain things. If you harbor an implicit belief that other genders are inferior to men, for example, then no matter how much you care about bettering the world, and how many sacrifices you make to better the world, your intentions would still be about bettering the world for {approved of population/men}. Philosophical and scientific rigor don’t help either; although I’m not well versed in the history of racism, I do know that science and philosophy have been used to espouse discriminatory views plenty of times in the past. See craniometry and Immanuel Kant (whose original work discriminates against black people iirc)
My question: is this belief because you are an effective altruist, or because these criteria are sufficient to indicate positive intentions towards minorities 100% of the time?
The criteria by themselves are sufficient to indicate that benign intentions are 90% likely. The remaining 10% chance is covered by the fact that we are Effective Altruists, so we extend the benefit of the doubt for a greater purpose.
An example: a devout traditionalist Buddhist male might also believe that they are trying to improve the world as much as possible, given the guidelines of their religious/spiritual tradition. They might very well also make personal sacrifices for such, and they may well be doing so in a paradigm of philosophical rigor. Buddhists might also claim that the way they achieve these things is scientifically rigorous (there’s a famous quote by the Dalai Lama where he says that if science refutes part of his teachings, the teachings must be rejected). But if said (male) Buddhist was raising questions about whether women deserve equal rights to men, does the fact he satisfies your three criterion mean we should assume he has positive and respectful intentions towards women?
If we were Buddhists, then yes except for the fact that I am mainly talking about the offensive things that people really say, like “the variability hypothesis explains the gender disparity in academia” or “women tend to have worse policy preferences than men” and so on, which are not simple cases of rights and values.
For the most incendiary issues, there is a point where you would expect any EA to know that the PR and community costs exceed the benefits, and therefore you should no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. And I would expect such a person, if they support EA, to say “ah I understand why I was censored about that, it is too much of a hot potato, very understandable thing for a moderator to do.” Again, just the most incendiary things, that people across the political spectrum view as offensive. Some kinds of unequal rights would be like that. But there are some issues, like maternity leave or child custody or access to combat roles in the military, where people commonly support unequal rights.
If you harbor an implicit belief that other genders are inferior to men, for example, then no matter how much you care about bettering the world, and how many sacrifices you make to better the world, your intentions would still be about bettering the world for {approved of population/men}.
Even if you held such a belief, it does not follow that you would disregard the rights and well-being of women. You might give them less weight but it would not matter for most purposes, the same charities and jobs would generally still be effective.
Philosophical and scientific rigor don’t help either; although I’m not well versed in the history of racism, I do know that science and philosophy have been used to espouse discriminatory views plenty of times in the past.
Science has improved, we know way more about people than we used to. I presume you would agree that the best science doesn’t give people reasons to give unequal rights to people. Every wrong view in the history of science has been justified with science. So what do we do about that? Well, we have to do science as well as we can. There are no shortcuts to wisdom. In hindsight, it’s easy to point at ways that science that went wrong in the past, but that’s no good for telling us about current science.
If someone has the right philosophy, then sharing better information with them will generally just help them achieve the same values that you want. If they don’t have the right philosophy then all bets are off, you might be able to manipulate them to act rightly by feeding them an incomplete picture of the science. But that’s why the EA/not-EA distinction clears things up here.
Can you clarify why you think your three criteria are enough to ascribe benign intentions the majority of the time? The point I was trying to get at was that there’s no relation to thinking a lot about how to make the world a better place and making sacrifices to achieve that AND also having benign intentions towards other groups. People can just more narrowly define the world that they are serving.
A concrete example of how believing women have less worth than men could be harmful in evaluating charities; one charity helps women by X utils, one charity helps men by X utils. (Perhaps charity #1 decreases the amount of work women need to do by having a well for water; etc.). Believing women have less worth than men would lead to charity #2 strictly dominating charity #1 when they should AC tually be equally recommended.
In terms of people having the ‘right’ philosophy — what I’m saying is that there’s nothing inherent to EA that prevents it from coexisting with misogyny. It’s not a core EA belief that women are equal to men. So we shouldn’t be surprised that EA’s may act as misogynists.
In any case, you admit that your criteria aren’t sufficient to screen out all negative intentions. When you say we give the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the EA project, what you’re saying is that demographic minorities need to accept some level of malevolence in their communities in exchange for the privilege of contributing to the EA cause. Why should the burden be on them? Why not place the burden (if you can even call it that) on individuals who don’t have to worry about this systematic malevolence — which is what this document suggests we do — to think about what they say before they say it.
(I’m not going to address each of your rebuttals individually because the main points I want to defend are the two I’ve tried to clarify above.)
Can you clarify why you think your three criteria are enough to ascribe benign intentions the majority of the time?
It seems right based on all my experience talking to people, seeing what they say, considering their beliefs, and observing their behavior.
The point I was trying to get at was that there’s no relation to thinking a lot about how to make the world a better place and making sacrifices to achieve that AND also having benign intentions towards other groups. People can just more narrowly define the world that they are serving.
Well in EA we don’t “just more narrowly define the world that we are serving”. We have philosophical rigor.
A concrete example of how believing women have less worth than men could be harmful in evaluating charities; one charity helps women by X utils, one charity helps men by X utils. (Perhaps charity #1 decreases the amount of work women need to do by having a well for water; etc.). Believing women have less worth than men would lead to charity #2 strictly dominating charity #1 when they should AC tually be equally recommended.
There are people in EA who believe that animals have a lot of value, so they don’t give money to charities that help women (or men). Are they harming women? What should we do about them?
It’s not a core EA belief that women are equal to men.
What do you mean by equal? It’s a core EA belief that the interests of women are equally valuable to the interests of men.
Also, your claim is that we should hide facts from people in order to prevent them from achieving their goals. This is only truly justified if people are actively trying to make life worse for women, which is obviously antithetical to EA. The mere fact that someone thinks women should be treated or prioritized a little differently doesn’t necessarily mean that giving them facts will make their behavior worse under your view.
When you say we give the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the EA project, what you’re saying is that demographic minorities need to accept some level of malevolence
EA is not for malevolent people, EA for people who are trying to make the world better.
If you are worried about people lying to infiltrate EA, that’s not going to change no matter what we do—people could lie to infiltrate any group with any rules.
in exchange for the privilege of contributing to the EA cause
The EA cause is not a privilege. It’s a duty.
Why should the burden be on them? Why not place the burden (if you can even call it that) on individuals who don’t have to worry about this systematic malevolence — which is what this document suggests we do — to think about what they say before they say it
In my original comment, I explicitly said that it’s a two-way street.
The reason that it’s a two-way street is that when these kinds of issues are only resolved by making demands on the offending party, the conflict never ends—there is a continued spiral of new issues and infighting.
You identify the number one issue you have with activists from demographic groups being that they are suspicious of EA motivations.
And you claim that they shouldn’t be because 1) EA’s are trying to improve the world as much as possible, 2) EA’s make personal sacrifices for such, and 3) they accept the paradigm of philosophical and scientific rigor.
My question: is this belief because you are an effective altruist, or because these criteria are sufficient to indicate positive intentions towards minorities 100% of the time?
An example: a devout traditionalist Buddhist male might also believe that they are trying to improve the world as much as possible, given the guidelines of their religious/spiritual tradition. They might very well also make personal sacrifices for such, and they may well be doing so in a paradigm of philosophical rigor. Buddhists might also claim that the way they achieve these things is scientifically rigorous (there’s a famous quote by the Dalai Lama where he says that if science refutes part of his teachings, the teachings must be rejected). But if said (male) Buddhist was raising questions about whether women deserve equal rights to men, does the fact he satisfies your three criterion mean we should assume he has positive and respectful intentions towards women?
We could replace Buddhism with any religious or spiritual worldview that is compatible with western science. I’m more familiar with Buddhism, which is why I make that my example.
My guess is that for most people who have read/upvoted your comment, the answer would be no. The reason would be because none of these comments reveal whether someone harbors bias or is malevolent about certain things. If you harbor an implicit belief that other genders are inferior to men, for example, then no matter how much you care about bettering the world, and how many sacrifices you make to better the world, your intentions would still be about bettering the world for {approved of population/men}. Philosophical and scientific rigor don’t help either; although I’m not well versed in the history of racism, I do know that science and philosophy have been used to espouse discriminatory views plenty of times in the past. See craniometry and Immanuel Kant (whose original work discriminates against black people iirc)
The criteria by themselves are sufficient to indicate that benign intentions are 90% likely. The remaining 10% chance is covered by the fact that we are Effective Altruists, so we extend the benefit of the doubt for a greater purpose.
If we were Buddhists, then yes except for the fact that I am mainly talking about the offensive things that people really say, like “the variability hypothesis explains the gender disparity in academia” or “women tend to have worse policy preferences than men” and so on, which are not simple cases of rights and values.
For the most incendiary issues, there is a point where you would expect any EA to know that the PR and community costs exceed the benefits, and therefore you should no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. And I would expect such a person, if they support EA, to say “ah I understand why I was censored about that, it is too much of a hot potato, very understandable thing for a moderator to do.” Again, just the most incendiary things, that people across the political spectrum view as offensive. Some kinds of unequal rights would be like that. But there are some issues, like maternity leave or child custody or access to combat roles in the military, where people commonly support unequal rights.
Even if you held such a belief, it does not follow that you would disregard the rights and well-being of women. You might give them less weight but it would not matter for most purposes, the same charities and jobs would generally still be effective.
Science has improved, we know way more about people than we used to. I presume you would agree that the best science doesn’t give people reasons to give unequal rights to people. Every wrong view in the history of science has been justified with science. So what do we do about that? Well, we have to do science as well as we can. There are no shortcuts to wisdom. In hindsight, it’s easy to point at ways that science that went wrong in the past, but that’s no good for telling us about current science.
If someone has the right philosophy, then sharing better information with them will generally just help them achieve the same values that you want. If they don’t have the right philosophy then all bets are off, you might be able to manipulate them to act rightly by feeding them an incomplete picture of the science. But that’s why the EA/not-EA distinction clears things up here.
Can you clarify why you think your three criteria are enough to ascribe benign intentions the majority of the time? The point I was trying to get at was that there’s no relation to thinking a lot about how to make the world a better place and making sacrifices to achieve that AND also having benign intentions towards other groups. People can just more narrowly define the world that they are serving.
A concrete example of how believing women have less worth than men could be harmful in evaluating charities; one charity helps women by X utils, one charity helps men by X utils. (Perhaps charity #1 decreases the amount of work women need to do by having a well for water; etc.). Believing women have less worth than men would lead to charity #2 strictly dominating charity #1 when they should AC tually be equally recommended.
In terms of people having the ‘right’ philosophy — what I’m saying is that there’s nothing inherent to EA that prevents it from coexisting with misogyny. It’s not a core EA belief that women are equal to men. So we shouldn’t be surprised that EA’s may act as misogynists.
In any case, you admit that your criteria aren’t sufficient to screen out all negative intentions. When you say we give the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the EA project, what you’re saying is that demographic minorities need to accept some level of malevolence in their communities in exchange for the privilege of contributing to the EA cause. Why should the burden be on them? Why not place the burden (if you can even call it that) on individuals who don’t have to worry about this systematic malevolence — which is what this document suggests we do — to think about what they say before they say it.
(I’m not going to address each of your rebuttals individually because the main points I want to defend are the two I’ve tried to clarify above.)
It seems right based on all my experience talking to people, seeing what they say, considering their beliefs, and observing their behavior.
Well in EA we don’t “just more narrowly define the world that we are serving”. We have philosophical rigor.
There are people in EA who believe that animals have a lot of value, so they don’t give money to charities that help women (or men). Are they harming women? What should we do about them?
What do you mean by equal? It’s a core EA belief that the interests of women are equally valuable to the interests of men.
Also, your claim is that we should hide facts from people in order to prevent them from achieving their goals. This is only truly justified if people are actively trying to make life worse for women, which is obviously antithetical to EA. The mere fact that someone thinks women should be treated or prioritized a little differently doesn’t necessarily mean that giving them facts will make their behavior worse under your view.
EA is not for malevolent people, EA for people who are trying to make the world better.
If you are worried about people lying to infiltrate EA, that’s not going to change no matter what we do—people could lie to infiltrate any group with any rules.
The EA cause is not a privilege. It’s a duty.
In my original comment, I explicitly said that it’s a two-way street.
The reason that it’s a two-way street is that when these kinds of issues are only resolved by making demands on the offending party, the conflict never ends—there is a continued spiral of new issues and infighting.