I’m not sure this post (from Givewell, who are great and are doing the best they can in a bad situation) is the right place.
I also agree with other commenters that many EA’s do engage with political topics, with policy makers and some of the most impactful examples of EA work have been where we have succeed in changing laws (for example, about lead pollution).
I also accept that many EA’s (for example, myself) tend to engage in politics separately from EA activities, and maybe see the two as complementary activities.
So it’s not about engaging in politics—EA’s do that—but about engaging in large-scale politics, and especially at critical moments like now.
But I find a massive disconnect when a group claims to be looking to do the most effective things possible, and when obviously by far the most effective thing to do right now is to engage in preventing President Trump from destroying the world, and yet any suggestion that EA’s get involved in that gets shot down. I made a post on this theme that has MINUS 29 Karma. My point was just that we need to put energy into stopping President Trump from destroying the world. Nobody explained what they had against it, they just voted it down.
I think there is an important distinction here. I don’t think this is about EA’s becoming associated with one political party (in the US or elsewhere). That would just put people off.
But the follow-up question would be how to get involved.
Because right now, absurdly, EA does not have a high reputation with the general public. Recently, in an article on AI Safety, about the AI-2027 paper that you may have heard about, the NY Times had the following quote: “Mr. Kokotajlo and Mr. Lifland both have ties to Effective Altruism, another philosophical movement popular among tech workers that has been making dire warnings about A.I. for years.” The clear implication was that that somehow gives their opinions less credibility, as if EA were some sort of cult—rather than a group of people who think clearly and rationally.
In a better society, EA’s would be an important influence group, just like doctors, scientists, economists or whatever. People would say “this action is strongly opposed by EA’s” as a strong argument against something. Right now, we are not there. If the EA community were to come out officially as calling President Trump a threat to democracy, this would probably be seized upon by the right-wing media as proof that he was doing a great job and annoying all the right people.
[My second most downvoted post was one where I dared to suggest that EA’s should do more to stand up for ourselves when we are ridiculed in the press … unfortunately we live in a world where, much as we may not like it, image matters, and if we let others treat us like a small, weird minority, then when important moments like AGI or Trump come along, we don’t have as much influence as we should have with the general public.]
So, basically, I love your post, I think I fully feel how you feel—but I’m also not sure what exactly we should do. Maybe EA’s engaging as individuals to stop Trump, encouraging all their friends to do the same is the best we can hope for.
I’m curious to know if you have tangible suggestions of what the EA community can and should do.
My interest is in improving democracy. I believe things like Trump, or Netanyahou, or Erdogan, or most democratic backsliding is a sign of democratic incompetence.
I think most people have little to no long-term vision for the question, “What would an advanced government of the future actually look like?” How much better could the world become if governments were smarter and more capable and just produced vastly more utility for people?
There is one thing I think is a strong contender for a superior future government. It’s called sortition. The premise is simple. In elections everybody participates. In sortition, a random sample of the public is chosen to participate. The benefit of sortition is scalability. Randomly chosen people, compensated or forced to participate, can engage in politics at enormous timescales compared to the average voter. More time to ask questions. Resources to become informed. The ability to seek and hire expertise. I elaborate about alleged benefits here.
Of course there’s a lot to do. First we need to prove the hypothesis. We have reasons why we think this is good, next we need to actually go out and test it. That takes a lot of money and research. This research will add evidence in its feasibility and capability. After that, if testing determines this thing to actually be good, more money is needed to campaign in favor of it.
Trump assuredly will not be the last authoritarian to arise out of liberal elections. If you value people’s freedom, if you wish to maximize utility, we should be looking for better things out there.
As far as why things like sortition would stop Trump, competent governments that are able to make their citizens feel content and satisfied with government performance, do not tend to appeal to tyrants for aid. Moreover if sortition is actually an effective way to organize people, it also might be an effective way to organize the Democratic Party.
Another powerful feature of sortition is its potential ability to create Democratic Legitimacy without going through the bureaucracy of government. For example, a Citizens’ Assembly can be potentially created through private funding, or through a referendum. A Citizens’ Assembly could be used as a presidential candidate selection system, and could delegitimize Trump or any other un-endorsed candidate.
Even if this is a “long-termist” project, the resources needed to say, test sortition, or launch a Citizens’ Assembly, are only in the millions of dollars. The economic benefits could be immense. Imagine a government that’s only 5% more efficient at increasing utility… that’s hundreds of billions of dollars of value per year. If the will was there, testing could happen immediately and we’d have results out before the end of Trump’s term.
Of course this won’t happen, not because it’s infeasible, but because there’s not yet funding, because sortition is mostly unheard of, because the idea hasn’t reached the ears of funders. Or if it has, the funders have just written it off for unknown reasons. Tractability is a typical excuse I hear, yet I’m not sure how sortition is any less tractable than any other long-termist project out there.
Thank you for writing this John!
I’m not sure this post (from Givewell, who are great and are doing the best they can in a bad situation) is the right place.
I also agree with other commenters that many EA’s do engage with political topics, with policy makers and some of the most impactful examples of EA work have been where we have succeed in changing laws (for example, about lead pollution).
I also accept that many EA’s (for example, myself) tend to engage in politics separately from EA activities, and maybe see the two as complementary activities.
So it’s not about engaging in politics—EA’s do that—but about engaging in large-scale politics, and especially at critical moments like now.
But I find a massive disconnect when a group claims to be looking to do the most effective things possible, and when obviously by far the most effective thing to do right now is to engage in preventing President Trump from destroying the world, and yet any suggestion that EA’s get involved in that gets shot down. I made a post on this theme that has MINUS 29 Karma. My point was just that we need to put energy into stopping President Trump from destroying the world. Nobody explained what they had against it, they just voted it down.
I think there is an important distinction here. I don’t think this is about EA’s becoming associated with one political party (in the US or elsewhere). That would just put people off.
But the follow-up question would be how to get involved.
Because right now, absurdly, EA does not have a high reputation with the general public. Recently, in an article on AI Safety, about the AI-2027 paper that you may have heard about, the NY Times had the following quote: “Mr. Kokotajlo and Mr. Lifland both have ties to Effective Altruism, another philosophical movement popular among tech workers that has been making dire warnings about A.I. for years.” The clear implication was that that somehow gives their opinions less credibility, as if EA were some sort of cult—rather than a group of people who think clearly and rationally.
In a better society, EA’s would be an important influence group, just like doctors, scientists, economists or whatever. People would say “this action is strongly opposed by EA’s” as a strong argument against something. Right now, we are not there. If the EA community were to come out officially as calling President Trump a threat to democracy, this would probably be seized upon by the right-wing media as proof that he was doing a great job and annoying all the right people.
[My second most downvoted post was one where I dared to suggest that EA’s should do more to stand up for ourselves when we are ridiculed in the press … unfortunately we live in a world where, much as we may not like it, image matters, and if we let others treat us like a small, weird minority, then when important moments like AGI or Trump come along, we don’t have as much influence as we should have with the general public.]
So, basically, I love your post, I think I fully feel how you feel—but I’m also not sure what exactly we should do. Maybe EA’s engaging as individuals to stop Trump, encouraging all their friends to do the same is the best we can hope for.
I’m curious to know if you have tangible suggestions of what the EA community can and should do.
My interest is in improving democracy. I believe things like Trump, or Netanyahou, or Erdogan, or most democratic backsliding is a sign of democratic incompetence.
I think most people have little to no long-term vision for the question, “What would an advanced government of the future actually look like?” How much better could the world become if governments were smarter and more capable and just produced vastly more utility for people?
There is one thing I think is a strong contender for a superior future government. It’s called sortition. The premise is simple. In elections everybody participates. In sortition, a random sample of the public is chosen to participate. The benefit of sortition is scalability. Randomly chosen people, compensated or forced to participate, can engage in politics at enormous timescales compared to the average voter. More time to ask questions. Resources to become informed. The ability to seek and hire expertise. I elaborate about alleged benefits here.
Of course there’s a lot to do. First we need to prove the hypothesis. We have reasons why we think this is good, next we need to actually go out and test it. That takes a lot of money and research. This research will add evidence in its feasibility and capability. After that, if testing determines this thing to actually be good, more money is needed to campaign in favor of it.
Trump assuredly will not be the last authoritarian to arise out of liberal elections. If you value people’s freedom, if you wish to maximize utility, we should be looking for better things out there.
As far as why things like sortition would stop Trump, competent governments that are able to make their citizens feel content and satisfied with government performance, do not tend to appeal to tyrants for aid. Moreover if sortition is actually an effective way to organize people, it also might be an effective way to organize the Democratic Party.
Another powerful feature of sortition is its potential ability to create Democratic Legitimacy without going through the bureaucracy of government. For example, a Citizens’ Assembly can be potentially created through private funding, or through a referendum. A Citizens’ Assembly could be used as a presidential candidate selection system, and could delegitimize Trump or any other un-endorsed candidate.
Even if this is a “long-termist” project, the resources needed to say, test sortition, or launch a Citizens’ Assembly, are only in the millions of dollars. The economic benefits could be immense. Imagine a government that’s only 5% more efficient at increasing utility… that’s hundreds of billions of dollars of value per year. If the will was there, testing could happen immediately and we’d have results out before the end of Trump’s term.
Of course this won’t happen, not because it’s infeasible, but because there’s not yet funding, because sortition is mostly unheard of, because the idea hasn’t reached the ears of funders. Or if it has, the funders have just written it off for unknown reasons. Tractability is a typical excuse I hear, yet I’m not sure how sortition is any less tractable than any other long-termist project out there.