Hi Luke, your post raises an important and more general question, which is whether EA should continue avoiding cause areas and positions that are perceived as highly political and partisan (such as ‘soak the rich’ tax policies). I think we should avoid these.
You’re accurate that ‘The broader EA community skews heavily left-of-center’, but I think this is a serious problem that could handicap future movement-building and public credibility. Of course, for people who are left-of-center, it might not feel like a problem, because such folks share many of the same political priorities and political blind spots; but to those who aren’t in that in-group, it can be quite frustrating.
As a libertarian centrist, I was first attracted to EA 6 or 7 years ago because it seemed fiercely anti-partisan, frustrated by mainstream politics, skeptical about the efficiency of government do-gooding, and willing to choose its battles very carefully, so as not to alienate smart and ethical people of whatever political persuasion. The early EA ethos seemed to implicitly view many government programs as ineffective pseudo-altruism that wasn’t based on reason, evidence, or consequentialist considerations. EA also seems laser-focused on cause areas that were important, tractable, and neglected—and understood that almost every politically controversial issue is low in both tractability (since controversy undermines consensus about what to do) and neglectedness (since politically controversial topics get huge attention in media and huge funding in academia and lobbying).
But over the last few years, I’ve sensed some mission drift towards left-of-center political cause areas and views. This is exemplified some common tropes in EA Forum posts, such as contempt for Trump supporters and Brexit supporters, fierce anti-nationalism, stereotyping of older conservatives as witless reactionaries, increasing focus on reducing economic inequality (rather than just reducing poverty & promoting economic growth), etc.
In the current polarized social media landscape, I think the EA movement should be extremely careful not to sound like just another Leftist, globalist, Millennial/Gen Z activist movement. Of course there are in-group signaling benefits for promoting & rewarding the political views that happen to be common among current EAs. But in the long run, if EA is perceived by centrists, conservatives, libertarians, nationalists, religious people, etc as an unreflectively Leftist partisan movement, it will get a huge amount of political blowback and backlash, and it will alienate many of the most intelligent, capable, experienced, ethical, and helpful people in the world—including potential donors, researchers, and advocates.
These are all fair points. For myself, I’ll say that (a) we have a lot of evidence internally that Vox’s readership is pretty left-leaning and (b) I care a lot about persuading people of core EA ideas, like giving impartially and effectively, the importance of global poverty/animals/future people, etc. So naturally when I’m aiming to persuade, I tend to make arguments I think will make sense to the audience I know I have.
I didn’t intend the piece to alienate EAs who don’t have center-left politics, and apologize if I had that effect anyway. I agree that a strength of the movement is the relative lack of ideological litmus tests, and I hope that continues.
Thanks for the reply. I do appreciate that Vox’s readership leans left, and it can be useful to tailor one’s messaging to the expected readership.
Trouble is, in the social media era, articles intended for one readership can easily get picked up, shared, mocked, trolled, satirized, and misunderstood by people from other political perspectives. So I’m worried about conservatives who see the article might end up thinking that EA is ‘just virtue signaling for liberal Vox readers’, or ‘just an excuse to push the Soros/WEF globalism agenda’, some such.
As one of the (few?) EAs with a substantial social media following among conservatives, I might be more tuned in to these issues than some other folks might be.
The takeaway is: political polarization has almost never been higher than it is today, mostly due to social media (if we agree with Jonathan Haidt’s take on it), and if EA becomes associated with the Left, whether strategically or accidentally, that will lead to big problems down the road.
As someone who is left-of-center, I agree that EA sometimes feels like it’s absorbing some bad ideas from the American centre-left (but I’m not 100% sure if I could find evidence for this).
I think a lot of it is because of Trumpism taking over the Republican Party, which has made having the Democrats in power important to many EA cause areas.
But I do think that a commitment to impartiality in EA has always implied fierce anti-nationalism, and I do think EA has always practically been a globalist movement.
But I agree that spending resources on partisan political issues is not going to be very cost-effective.
I do worry that it exemplifies a certain strand of EA thinking that often assumes (without much epistemic humility) that Trump-style populism is obviously worse for EA cause areas, or for total expected sentient utility, than Biden-style woke Leftism is. For those of us who have been subject to censorship and cancellation by irrational woke activists, or who have seen how woke activism has undermined the values of reason, evidence, impartiality, and free speech in American academia, media, government, and corporations, that conclusion is far from obvious.
In my opinion, neither American political party is at all aligned with EA thinking, priorities, cause areas, or ethics, so we should be very wary of assuming that either party is a natural or reliable supporter of EA ideals and practices, or it necessarily better than the other party.
With regard to nationalism, that’s a more complex and nuanced debate that deserves a longer discussion. I think that many conservative nationalists (e.g. Yoram Hazony) view nationalism (for every nation) as the most effective and most stable way to promote overall global well-being, and to avoid exploitation by exploitative global institutions that don’t actually promote global well-being, and that often reflect the geopolitical interests of just a few powerful nations.
Hi Luke, your post raises an important and more general question, which is whether EA should continue avoiding cause areas and positions that are perceived as highly political and partisan (such as ‘soak the rich’ tax policies). I think we should avoid these.
You’re accurate that ‘The broader EA community skews heavily left-of-center’, but I think this is a serious problem that could handicap future movement-building and public credibility. Of course, for people who are left-of-center, it might not feel like a problem, because such folks share many of the same political priorities and political blind spots; but to those who aren’t in that in-group, it can be quite frustrating.
As a libertarian centrist, I was first attracted to EA 6 or 7 years ago because it seemed fiercely anti-partisan, frustrated by mainstream politics, skeptical about the efficiency of government do-gooding, and willing to choose its battles very carefully, so as not to alienate smart and ethical people of whatever political persuasion. The early EA ethos seemed to implicitly view many government programs as ineffective pseudo-altruism that wasn’t based on reason, evidence, or consequentialist considerations. EA also seems laser-focused on cause areas that were important, tractable, and neglected—and understood that almost every politically controversial issue is low in both tractability (since controversy undermines consensus about what to do) and neglectedness (since politically controversial topics get huge attention in media and huge funding in academia and lobbying).
But over the last few years, I’ve sensed some mission drift towards left-of-center political cause areas and views. This is exemplified some common tropes in EA Forum posts, such as contempt for Trump supporters and Brexit supporters, fierce anti-nationalism, stereotyping of older conservatives as witless reactionaries, increasing focus on reducing economic inequality (rather than just reducing poverty & promoting economic growth), etc.
In the current polarized social media landscape, I think the EA movement should be extremely careful not to sound like just another Leftist, globalist, Millennial/Gen Z activist movement. Of course there are in-group signaling benefits for promoting & rewarding the political views that happen to be common among current EAs. But in the long run, if EA is perceived by centrists, conservatives, libertarians, nationalists, religious people, etc as an unreflectively Leftist partisan movement, it will get a huge amount of political blowback and backlash, and it will alienate many of the most intelligent, capable, experienced, ethical, and helpful people in the world—including potential donors, researchers, and advocates.
These are all fair points. For myself, I’ll say that (a) we have a lot of evidence internally that Vox’s readership is pretty left-leaning and (b) I care a lot about persuading people of core EA ideas, like giving impartially and effectively, the importance of global poverty/animals/future people, etc. So naturally when I’m aiming to persuade, I tend to make arguments I think will make sense to the audience I know I have.
I didn’t intend the piece to alienate EAs who don’t have center-left politics, and apologize if I had that effect anyway. I agree that a strength of the movement is the relative lack of ideological litmus tests, and I hope that continues.
Hi Dylan,
Thanks for the reply. I do appreciate that Vox’s readership leans left, and it can be useful to tailor one’s messaging to the expected readership.
Trouble is, in the social media era, articles intended for one readership can easily get picked up, shared, mocked, trolled, satirized, and misunderstood by people from other political perspectives. So I’m worried about conservatives who see the article might end up thinking that EA is ‘just virtue signaling for liberal Vox readers’, or ‘just an excuse to push the Soros/WEF globalism agenda’, some such.
As one of the (few?) EAs with a substantial social media following among conservatives, I might be more tuned in to these issues than some other folks might be.
The takeaway is: political polarization has almost never been higher than it is today, mostly due to social media (if we agree with Jonathan Haidt’s take on it), and if EA becomes associated with the Left, whether strategically or accidentally, that will lead to big problems down the road.
As someone who is left-of-center, I agree that EA sometimes feels like it’s absorbing some bad ideas from the American centre-left (but I’m not 100% sure if I could find evidence for this).
I think a lot of it is because of Trumpism taking over the Republican Party, which has made having the Democrats in power important to many EA cause areas.
But I do think that a commitment to impartiality in EA has always implied fierce anti-nationalism, and I do think EA has always practically been a globalist movement.
But I agree that spending resources on partisan political issues is not going to be very cost-effective.
Hi, thanks for your comment.
I do worry that it exemplifies a certain strand of EA thinking that often assumes (without much epistemic humility) that Trump-style populism is obviously worse for EA cause areas, or for total expected sentient utility, than Biden-style woke Leftism is. For those of us who have been subject to censorship and cancellation by irrational woke activists, or who have seen how woke activism has undermined the values of reason, evidence, impartiality, and free speech in American academia, media, government, and corporations, that conclusion is far from obvious.
In my opinion, neither American political party is at all aligned with EA thinking, priorities, cause areas, or ethics, so we should be very wary of assuming that either party is a natural or reliable supporter of EA ideals and practices, or it necessarily better than the other party.
With regard to nationalism, that’s a more complex and nuanced debate that deserves a longer discussion. I think that many conservative nationalists (e.g. Yoram Hazony) view nationalism (for every nation) as the most effective and most stable way to promote overall global well-being, and to avoid exploitation by exploitative global institutions that don’t actually promote global well-being, and that often reflect the geopolitical interests of just a few powerful nations.
I don’t have time to write a full response, but I want to flag that:
Any choice here—including “promoting growth while ignoring inequality”—is very political. You cannot have an a-political movement fighting poverty.
I think Geoffrey used ‘political’ to mean ‘partisan’ in this context