ank you for this post—it looks very interesting. I’ve given it a quick skim but wanted to check in on a concern/critique I have before engaging more closely with the recommendations.
Most of the post seems dedicated to explaining why the Fabians were so successful.
However, I’m not yet convinced that they actually caused meaningful change. You begin by listing some of their goals and then highlight how many of those goals came to fruition, but that doesn’t establish their causal role in making those changes happen.
It looks like you provide two main forms of evidence for their influence:
1. Noting that they had influential members or supporters in many countries.
2. Quoting a particular supporter of the Fabians.
Unfortunately, both of these seem like weak evidence to me. The first point is fairly common—many people sign up for societies and pay lip service to their supposed importance without necessarily contributing to their impact. For example, PlayPumps (a classic Effective Altruist case of an ineffective and even counterproductive yet widely endorsed charity) had many influential supporters, but that didn’t make it effective or significant.
As for the Margaret Cole quote, it doesn’t provide much evidence either—it’s essentially just an endorsement, asserting that the Fabians were important without substantiating that claim?
To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong about the Fabians being influential. Rather, I think the post hasn’t yet provided strong evidence for that claim. If you were to include more comprehensive or compelling evidence, this could be a really valuable post.
Thanks a lot for your work here!
(Apologies if this seems pedantic. I think these methodological considerations are important for the effort to learn useful lessons from history though. See these posts I wrote for some related thoughts)
ank you for this post—it looks very interesting. I’ve given it a quick skim but wanted to check in on a concern/critique I have before engaging more closely with the recommendations.
Most of the post seems dedicated to explaining why the Fabians were so successful.
However, I’m not yet convinced that they actually caused meaningful change. You begin by listing some of their goals and then highlight how many of those goals came to fruition, but that doesn’t establish their causal role in making those changes happen.
It looks like you provide two main forms of evidence for their influence:
1. Noting that they had influential members or supporters in many countries.
2. Quoting a particular supporter of the Fabians.
Unfortunately, both of these seem like weak evidence to me. The first point is fairly common—many people sign up for societies and pay lip service to their supposed importance without necessarily contributing to their impact. For example, PlayPumps (a classic Effective Altruist case of an ineffective and even counterproductive yet widely endorsed charity) had many influential supporters, but that didn’t make it effective or significant.
As for the Margaret Cole quote, it doesn’t provide much evidence either—it’s essentially just an endorsement, asserting that the Fabians were important without substantiating that claim?
To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong about the Fabians being influential. Rather, I think the post hasn’t yet provided strong evidence for that claim. If you were to include more comprehensive or compelling evidence, this could be a really valuable post.
Thanks a lot for your work here!
(Apologies if this seems pedantic. I think these methodological considerations are important for the effort to learn useful lessons from history though. See these posts I wrote for some related thoughts)
https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/blog/what-can-the-farmed-animal-movement-learn-from-history
https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/blog/social-movement-case-studies-methodology )