I want to note a tension in this article. It was about being welcoming by, roughly, not assuming all people you speak to are from a certain group. However, while ‘conservative’ is a general term, the conservatives under discussion were clearly conservatives in the USA; in the UK, from where I write, there isn’t much in the way of creationists, pro-lifers, or Trump supporters. As such, I would like to suggest that one way effective altruists can be welcoming is by not presuming everyone interested in effective altruism is an US citizen.
Thank you! You’re right. That’s absolutely a flaw. In the future, when I write things like this, I’ll try to be more careful about highlighting that both I and my conservative friends are American and I can’t speak to other countries.
I agree, and I was going to say something about this as well. As a Canadian, I notice the tacit America-centrism in EA discourse even more than what Ozy rightly notices is the assumption in much EA discourse we’re all left-of-centre. At the same time, going by the 2018 EA Survey, at least one third of EA community members are in the U.S. Other factors that would be missed by the EA survey are the fact that the majority of resources EA commands are in EA:
Between the Open Philanthropy Project and perhaps the majority of earners-to-give being in the U.S., the vast majority of funding/donations driven through EA comes through the U.S.
I haven’t definitively checked, but I’d expect at least half the NPOs/NGOs who identify as part as or are aligned with EA are in the U.S. This includes the flagship organizations in major EA cause areas, such as virtually all x-risk organizations outside Cambridge and Oxford universities; Givewell in global poverty alleviation; and ACE and the Good Food Institute working in farm animal welfare.
In terms of political/policy goals in the populations of different countries, the U.S. will still be of more interest to EA than any other country for the foreseeable future, because it seems one of the countries where EA is likeliest to impact public policy; where EA-impacted policy shifts may have the greatest humanitarian/philanthropic impact, due to the sheer population and economic size of the U.S.; and a country where EA-impacted policy gains can best serve as a model/template for how EA could replicate such successes in other countries.
As long as EAs writing about EA from an American perspective qualify in their articles/posts that’s what they’re doing, I think the realistic thing for non-Americans among us to do is expect for the foreseeable future a seemingly disproportionate focus on American culture/politics will still dominate EA discussions.
I want to note a tension in this article. It was about being welcoming by, roughly, not assuming all people you speak to are from a certain group. However, while ‘conservative’ is a general term, the conservatives under discussion were clearly conservatives in the USA; in the UK, from where I write, there isn’t much in the way of creationists, pro-lifers, or Trump supporters. As such, I would like to suggest that one way effective altruists can be welcoming is by not presuming everyone interested in effective altruism is an US citizen.
Thank you! You’re right. That’s absolutely a flaw. In the future, when I write things like this, I’ll try to be more careful about highlighting that both I and my conservative friends are American and I can’t speak to other countries.
I agree, and I was going to say something about this as well. As a Canadian, I notice the tacit America-centrism in EA discourse even more than what Ozy rightly notices is the assumption in much EA discourse we’re all left-of-centre. At the same time, going by the 2018 EA Survey, at least one third of EA community members are in the U.S. Other factors that would be missed by the EA survey are the fact that the majority of resources EA commands are in EA:
Between the Open Philanthropy Project and perhaps the majority of earners-to-give being in the U.S., the vast majority of funding/donations driven through EA comes through the U.S.
I haven’t definitively checked, but I’d expect at least half the NPOs/NGOs who identify as part as or are aligned with EA are in the U.S. This includes the flagship organizations in major EA cause areas, such as virtually all x-risk organizations outside Cambridge and Oxford universities; Givewell in global poverty alleviation; and ACE and the Good Food Institute working in farm animal welfare.
In terms of political/policy goals in the populations of different countries, the U.S. will still be of more interest to EA than any other country for the foreseeable future, because it seems one of the countries where EA is likeliest to impact public policy; where EA-impacted policy shifts may have the greatest humanitarian/philanthropic impact, due to the sheer population and economic size of the U.S.; and a country where EA-impacted policy gains can best serve as a model/template for how EA could replicate such successes in other countries.
As long as EAs writing about EA from an American perspective qualify in their articles/posts that’s what they’re doing, I think the realistic thing for non-Americans among us to do is expect for the foreseeable future a seemingly disproportionate focus on American culture/politics will still dominate EA discussions.