My answer to the narrow question is that the idea has only recently emerged because of the recent emergence of social networks, allowing communities with a set of values outside the societal norm to emerge. As you describe it you thought deeply on your own about why people behaved the way they did, but on your own in a society with very particular values, effectively reinforced by marketing and group pressure you would have most likely simply conformed to your community norms over time (thinking about the meaning of life is not widely encouraged past university). Given that it requires an unusual level of “why” type thinking to focus on the issue this level of intellectual thinking was unlikely to achieve critical mass in any one particular physical location. That the movement is struggling to engage older mainstream groups is a demonstration of how deep conformance to social norms becomes, which only deepens I think the longer you are exposed to it, and makes the movement’s emergence online in a young intellectual community (which would be the first place to see critical mass) only to be expected.
Why the societal norm is to give so little and relatively so ineffectively despite the minimal “happiness” utility to an individual of the incremental dollar as incomes rise above a modest level in Western society (despite the prevalence of Christian values requiring a particular focus on caring for those in extreme poverty) is a deeper question. In my view it is probably due to slow steady evolutionary change of society, with no particular shock to the system to cause a widespread re-evaluation.
Until perhaps the 1960s rising incomes in developed economies were generally well aligned to rising happiness in a very real sense—cars, washing machines, TVs, central heating all improved peoples lives in very measurable ways. At this point it would have been very hard to argue in a coherent way that it was better to give to those you have never seen and knew nothing about (if you could meaningfully give to them at all) than to those you knew and loved close at hand.
The rising incomes that increased happiness created a strong almost pavlovian link between efficiency, profit and “a good thing”. With the introduction of the television powerful mass marketing became possible, increasingly playing at a sub-conscious level to our deep desires and motivations (fear, status, happiness) to create a need to consume more in order to allow profits to continue to grow as any capitalist organisation requires if it is to continue to flourish (which might otherwise have stalled). That, according to the World Happiness Report (page 3 http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/2012/World%20Happiness%20Report.pdf) US GNP per capita has tripled since 1960 whilst happiness has remained relatively unchanged is an indication of the tenuous link that now exists in developed economies between growth and life improvement, but it is this key aspect that has allowed a “life improvement arbitrage” to be created that is now accurately observed and acted on by the effective altruism movement.
Now the concept has been created, and is to some extent obvious, it can be relatively easily understood by a very large group of people who with persuasion will wish to effectively invest in creating a better world. In selling the concepts to them though, and given the level of norming to societal benchmarks that has occurred I believe it will be necessary to use the same powerful marketing focussed on deep motivations to shift people’s behaviour as was necessary to allow the life improvement arbitrage to be created in the first place. There is no reason that this cannot be carried out with the same rigour of comparison as effective altruism would bring to any other activity—a commercial enterprise is rigorous in its assessment of the return on the marketing dollar, and there is no reason for the EA movement to be any different. There are many more things that EAs can examine now that the concept has been created.
I agree that social networks are very important for allowing these kind of groups to grow. I’m sure there have been small groups around the world dedicated towards doing maximal good, but without the Internet it is very hard for a coherent movement to form.
Wow this is a great post—thanks Katja!
My answer to the narrow question is that the idea has only recently emerged because of the recent emergence of social networks, allowing communities with a set of values outside the societal norm to emerge. As you describe it you thought deeply on your own about why people behaved the way they did, but on your own in a society with very particular values, effectively reinforced by marketing and group pressure you would have most likely simply conformed to your community norms over time (thinking about the meaning of life is not widely encouraged past university). Given that it requires an unusual level of “why” type thinking to focus on the issue this level of intellectual thinking was unlikely to achieve critical mass in any one particular physical location. That the movement is struggling to engage older mainstream groups is a demonstration of how deep conformance to social norms becomes, which only deepens I think the longer you are exposed to it, and makes the movement’s emergence online in a young intellectual community (which would be the first place to see critical mass) only to be expected.
Why the societal norm is to give so little and relatively so ineffectively despite the minimal “happiness” utility to an individual of the incremental dollar as incomes rise above a modest level in Western society (despite the prevalence of Christian values requiring a particular focus on caring for those in extreme poverty) is a deeper question. In my view it is probably due to slow steady evolutionary change of society, with no particular shock to the system to cause a widespread re-evaluation.
Until perhaps the 1960s rising incomes in developed economies were generally well aligned to rising happiness in a very real sense—cars, washing machines, TVs, central heating all improved peoples lives in very measurable ways. At this point it would have been very hard to argue in a coherent way that it was better to give to those you have never seen and knew nothing about (if you could meaningfully give to them at all) than to those you knew and loved close at hand.
The rising incomes that increased happiness created a strong almost pavlovian link between efficiency, profit and “a good thing”. With the introduction of the television powerful mass marketing became possible, increasingly playing at a sub-conscious level to our deep desires and motivations (fear, status, happiness) to create a need to consume more in order to allow profits to continue to grow as any capitalist organisation requires if it is to continue to flourish (which might otherwise have stalled). That, according to the World Happiness Report (page 3 http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/2012/World%20Happiness%20Report.pdf) US GNP per capita has tripled since 1960 whilst happiness has remained relatively unchanged is an indication of the tenuous link that now exists in developed economies between growth and life improvement, but it is this key aspect that has allowed a “life improvement arbitrage” to be created that is now accurately observed and acted on by the effective altruism movement.
Now the concept has been created, and is to some extent obvious, it can be relatively easily understood by a very large group of people who with persuasion will wish to effectively invest in creating a better world. In selling the concepts to them though, and given the level of norming to societal benchmarks that has occurred I believe it will be necessary to use the same powerful marketing focussed on deep motivations to shift people’s behaviour as was necessary to allow the life improvement arbitrage to be created in the first place. There is no reason that this cannot be carried out with the same rigour of comparison as effective altruism would bring to any other activity—a commercial enterprise is rigorous in its assessment of the return on the marketing dollar, and there is no reason for the EA movement to be any different. There are many more things that EAs can examine now that the concept has been created.
I agree that social networks are very important for allowing these kind of groups to grow. I’m sure there have been small groups around the world dedicated towards doing maximal good, but without the Internet it is very hard for a coherent movement to form.