An extreme extension of utilitarian, rationalist, and effective altruist logic can blind us to the negative experiences of individuals and major flaws in the EA community. I fear that people within the EA community are not always taking allegations of harm seriously out of concern that (1) there is “more impactful” work that they could be doing than investigating such allegations, (2) investigating allegations of harm against prominent individuals may damage the reputation of Effective Altruism, and (3) some individuals are having such a “high-impact” that they don’t want to find them guilty of an act that may impede such effective work.
I overall agree with the ideas presented in this post and I think they deserve more attention. I think the above part is especially true. Its true that discriminatory tendencies in a community doing good don’t erase its overall positive impact. HOWEVER. It does, how you state, exclude some people from helping. And if that “some people” is 50% (in some countries more) of college graduates, that seems like a real big problem.
I overall agree with the ideas presented in this post and I think they deserve more attention. I think the above part is especially true. Its true that discriminatory tendencies in a community doing good don’t erase its overall positive impact. HOWEVER. It does, how you state, exclude some people from helping. And if that “some people” is 50% (in some countries more) of college graduates, that seems like a real big problem.
Thank you for writing this!