I like this! I’m glad to be able to see a lot of your prior work gathered together like this (plus some material I don’t remember seeing before).
One concern: I think this document, if seen outside the Forum’s context, could be read by people as representing an “official” view of the EA community, rather than one person’s views on how to effectively engage with politics.
(The name “Effective Altruist Civic Handbook” feeds into this; something like “Civic Activism through an EA Lens” seems better, though I’m sure you can come up with something less clunky than my example.)
When documents exist that can be shared around independent of an explanatory post, it’s good to include info on authorship/purpose to clarify who created them and what their background is.
This is something CEA has struggled with in the past. When we published the second version of the EA Handbook, we didn’t initially clarify that CEA had written it, which made it seem like the work of the entire movement rather than the work of a single organization.
For a positive counterexample, Julia Wise wrote a piece on treatment for alcohol problems which included a note on her experience (mental health training and amateur research skills, no experience in treating substance abuse).
I like this! I’m glad to be able to see a lot of your prior work gathered together like this (plus some material I don’t remember seeing before).
One concern: I think this document, if seen outside the Forum’s context, could be read by people as representing an “official” view of the EA community, rather than one person’s views on how to effectively engage with politics.
(The name “Effective Altruist Civic Handbook” feeds into this; something like “Civic Activism through an EA Lens” seems better, though I’m sure you can come up with something less clunky than my example.)
When documents exist that can be shared around independent of an explanatory post, it’s good to include info on authorship/purpose to clarify who created them and what their background is.
This is something CEA has struggled with in the past. When we published the second version of the EA Handbook, we didn’t initially clarify that CEA had written it, which made it seem like the work of the entire movement rather than the work of a single organization.
For a positive counterexample, Julia Wise wrote a piece on treatment for alcohol problems which included a note on her experience (mental health training and amateur research skills, no experience in treating substance abuse).
Done though I still haven’t identified a proper catchy name. “Effective Altruist civic handbook” was just meant as a placeholder.