I want to write a detailed response to this, but usually that means I end up not writing anything, so I’ll just state my main point quickly write a jumbled mess:
You can (and should) support the democratic process while also acknowledging that it currently works badly in regards for effectiveness, and wanting to improve it.
Your view seems to me to assume everything is static, and the quality of democratic decision making cannot change. I, on the other hand, think we can influence the public and democratic institutions to learn to analyze, compare numbers, and set priorities.
They won’t necessarily arrive at our priorities or solutions, but that might be because we’re a small group and we’re missing a lot of important things. I think I’m a smart person and I think you’re a smart person too, and we’ve learnt to employ some important tools in our thought process. The humility here doesn’t mean thinking “my contribution is comparable worthless”, but rather “small groups have very bad failure modes, I should use my contributions and synthesize them with the existing processes”.
Also as freedomandutility pointed out, most people aren’t represented by the American democracy specifically, and worrying about their welfare isn’t in the consensus. So I’m not saying “stop giving to developing countries and animal welfare because everyone doesn’t agree”. When I talk about democracy here I usually mean the recipients of aid should be part of the decision making, as well as most EAs together and not just boards of some non profits. The only part I really want the American democracy specifically to deal with is Americans’ tax money, because I feel it naturally belongs to the American people and not to the specific taxpayer.
I want to write a detailed response to this, but usually that means I end up not writing anything, so I’ll just
state my main pointquickly write a jumbled mess:You can (and should) support the democratic process while also acknowledging that it currently works badly in regards for effectiveness, and wanting to improve it.
Your view seems to me to assume everything is static, and the quality of democratic decision making cannot change. I, on the other hand, think we can influence the public and democratic institutions to learn to analyze, compare numbers, and set priorities.
They won’t necessarily arrive at our priorities or solutions, but that might be because we’re a small group and we’re missing a lot of important things. I think I’m a smart person and I think you’re a smart person too, and we’ve learnt to employ some important tools in our thought process. The humility here doesn’t mean thinking “my contribution is comparable worthless”, but rather “small groups have very bad failure modes, I should use my contributions and synthesize them with the existing processes”.
Also as freedomandutility pointed out, most people aren’t represented by the American democracy specifically, and worrying about their welfare isn’t in the consensus. So I’m not saying “stop giving to developing countries and animal welfare because everyone doesn’t agree”. When I talk about democracy here I usually mean the recipients of aid should be part of the decision making, as well as most EAs together and not just boards of some non profits. The only part I really want the American democracy specifically to deal with is Americans’ tax money, because I feel it naturally belongs to the American people and not to the specific taxpayer.