Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I have a few reactions to reading it:
EA as a consequence of capitalism
I just want to call out that this in itself isn’t a valid criticism of EA, any more than it would be a valid criticism of the social movements that you favour. But I suspect you agree with this, so let’s move on.
EA as a form of capitalism
Simultaneously, EA is also a form of capitalism because it is founded on a need to maximize what a unit of resources like time, money, and labour can achieve
I think you’ve made a category error here. I hear your comment that ‘critical theorists have long viewed capital in extra-monetary terms’, but whatever resource we’re talking about, the kind of capitalist system you’re describing is people trying to grab as much of that resource as possible for themselves. That’s what the ‘maximization’ is all about.
EA is not trying to use time, money, and labour to maximally hoard resources, it’s using them to try and maximally improve the long-term future/alleviate suffering/avoid extinction risks/etc.
I would expect any social movement you care about to be doing something similar with regards to its own goals. I do hear that you have concerns about focusing too hard on efficiency/optimization, but I don’t agree that this is the property of capitalism that causes harm, rather its lack of a means to incentivise optimizing for public (vs private) goods.
EA as a facilitator of capitalism
I would really like concrete examples if you’re going to make this argument. My impression is that people tend to make this case without providing any, and as a result I’m highly sceptical of the claim.
Can you show me a couple of case studies where an EA-backed aid program plausibly thwarted meaningful political change that would otherwise have occurred in some area of the world? Without that, I don’t think we can have a productive conversation on this point.
I accept that aid is sometimes used to disingenuously manipulate public opinion, but I do not think the correct response to this is to stop trying to help people! (I think this would be true even if most aid was given in bad faith).
I also think the idea that EA funds help bad actors to better disingenuously manipulate public opinion doesn’t make sense. I think most of the public would consider EA funds a pretty weird place to put money, and even if some bad actor could claim they saved 100x as many lives and EA had helped them do it, our cognitive biases around large numbers mean this probably wouldn’t play significantly better in terms of PR. The extra 99x lives saved, however, would remain saved.
Finally, I am strongly against any line of thinking that implies we should deliberately be more neglectful so people in need get angry and revolt, ultimately making things better in the long run. You don’t go this far in your piece, but I think you get pretty close.
There are many reasons I think this kind of idea is wrongheaded, but for a start I think it’s disrespectful to those in suffering to act like they somehow need to be ‘prodded’ into realizing things could work better than they do, and doubly so to try and do this by deliberately abstaining from helping them when it’s within your ability to do so. I hope we can agree on that!
Foucault, Critical Theory, etc.
one of the most important contributions of critical theory has been to dismantle the idea that objective evidence exists
I actually spent some time at university in the post-Kantian philosophy space. There was a point when I really liked it, but now I find it problematically navel-gazey.
For example, claiming a worldview that values ‘joy, community, and non-human life’ would somehow ‘de-reify’ scarcity as something that actually exists in the world seems completely unhelpful to me. Scarcity pretty straightforwardly predates capitalism and feudalism (see starvation), and I think having a joy- and community-based value system comes nowhere close to building the structures that will let us avoid it.
That said, ‘EA-admissible data therefore only captures a small fraction of total ideas’ is correct, and I tend to agree with you that EA should act a lot more like it (post here). I just encourage you not to push this to the point where you’re making statements like ‘objective evidence doesn’t exist’. Even if they are in some sense true, they are totally impractical, and so are (rightfully, I think) offputting to most people.
I think you mostly bring critical theory up in the context of deciding what evidence to act on. For all of its flaws, including, as you say, that it inevitably falls short of being fully inclusive, focused and quantitative approaches have yielded some pretty amazing results.
What pushed me over into the EA consensus here is Philip Tetlock’s Superforecasting. There’s something about being able to consistently predict the future better than everyone else that I find pretty convincing, and Tetlock’s background is also in the humanities. I really recommend reading it.
I agree it is very important that people get to work on projects in areas without pre-researched interventions or randomized control trials they can use to argue their ideas will work, because I think your observations relating to diversity and bias in who gets to have those things funded are correct. I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with an ecosystem that decides to focus on areas where the RCTs do already exist.
Finally, I care about a method of change’s track record, and I’m not particularly convinced by critical theory in this area (you might want to look into Martin Heidegger’s politics). I want to take their insights around how atypical and underleveraged it is to listen to diverse viewpoints, use that to update very hard on the views of people with different experiences and backgrounds to my own, and then get to work.
In the volunteering that I have done, no other part of the critical theory you cite throughout your piece has proven particularly useful. It’s worth noting that unions and social movements predate critical theory!
General comment on the idea that EA is opposed to social change
I regularly hear criticism along the lines of ‘EA by its very structure cannot question the dynamics of power, it can only work within the existing political system’, and I think this is straightforwardly false.
Political system change certainly isn’t a focus of EA from what I’ve seen, but that is mostly because EA folks tend to like numbers and statistics, which can’t be leveraged in quite such interesting ways when working with grassroots organizations. The typical elite background of EAs probably also makes grassroots organization unappealing on some aesthetic level too to be fair, which seems more problematic.
That said, this says something about the personal preferences of the EA community, but it does not render EA opposed to other communities doing grassroots work. In specific cases where EA gets in the way of another community, of course they should communicate and try to resolve the issue, but generally I think the best solution is pretty clearly to live and let live.
Some people like doing good with statistics, some people like doing good with organizing, those preferences lend themselves to different cause areas, and I am very grateful to both groups of people.
Tropical rainforest example
I want to hear more about this, as based on what you’ve written it sounds like a great cause to prioritize. (I acknowledge that you’re worried EA cause-prioritizing the amazon will lead to commodifying the amazon, and hopefully I’ve explained why I disagree with that above).
Thank you for taking the time to engage so deeply with my essay. I apologise for the delay in replying. I’ve been on holiday since I posted, and unfortunately I’ve been unable to reply as fully as I wanted until now. I’ll offer some thoughts and responses I have after reading your valuable comments.
EA as a form of capitalism:
I agree that EA does not try to hold onto the material resources that pass through its actors. I also agree that all social movements must accumulate extra-monetary forms of capital, such as knowledge, social capital and political buy-in.
What I want to question, however, is how the EA movement processes its resources in ways that facilitate and mimic capitalism. You state that incentivising for public goods is the core problem under capitalism. I concur, but my argument is that EA makes it easier for their disincentivization because it tries to make the process of addressing externalities as efficient as possible, conducted privately. EA plugs the gaps caused by structural economic inequality (like unequal currency exchange or the lack of reparations for centuries of slavery), rather than centring these as the fundamental issues at stake. System-wide problems cannot be fixed overnight, and I agree there is a moral duty to alleviate suffering most efficiently. Yet, my concern is that EA becomes myopic because of its intense focus on the latter.
EA as a facilitator of capitalism:
The major thrust of my piece is to argue that the aid movement is structurally embedded within capitalist priorities of the Global North, even if it aims to be as effective as possible within this paradigm. I do not argue that aid is being used to disingenuously manipulate public opinion or that EA is a better vehicle than any other for hoodwinking the public. Critical theory is not about conspiracy, but about providing tools to unpick the naturalization of power.
Throughout my piece, I am also clear that we should never neglect people in need. I argued that we still need EA’s insights, just as people in food poverty need food banks in the Global North, but this should not neglect us from trying to work towards identifying the structures underpinning suffering. Nor do I suggest that deprivation would somehow prod people in the Global South into action. Indeed, my argument is the converse: people in the Global South are full of ideas and solutions – yet the EA community needs prodding towards creating the epistemic architecture to listen to more of these.
Unfortunately, concrete sociological examples of the behaviour of ultrawealthy people are rare. It is a highly under-researched field, due to difficulties accessing this secretive, exclusive population and researcher biases towards studying more oppressed groups. One example I am aware of is Justin Farrell’s (2021) book Billionaire Wilderness, which is an ethnographic and quantitative study of philanthropocapitalism in Teton Country, Wyoming, the richest county in the US. Farrell quantitatively traced how his contacts socialized with each other, donated to local environmental and educational charities, as well as examining their attitudes through in-depth interviews. Farrell found clear evidence that philanthropy acted as “a valuable form of social currency in the community” with an emergent status market. He documents how the influx of great wealth created a greater need for this local charity, due to its inflation of the local real estate market. He argues, on the basis of this data, that there was a “strong tendency towards politically safe projects that reinforce the status quo” and preserve social philanthropic networks (p.g.160). This philanthropic field is very different to EA’s global, evidence-backed philanthropy. However, I’m inclined to agree with Farrell’s conclusion that “most rich philanthropists are neither entirely good Samaritans, giving altruistically for the purity of a cause, nor are they entirely evil colonialists with hidden self-interest or ideas of self-aggrandizement”.
Foucault, critical theory, etc.
I think critical theory can often appear “problematically navel-gazey” because it asks that people with greater privilege interrogate the way in which they participate in structures of power, which is something they are unaccustomed to, even if they are inclined to scrutinize evidence. Social scientists call this ‘reflexivity’, and it can be unsettling and difficult. For instance, it can be uncomfortable to appreciate how Western science facilitated colonialism and how it remains suffused with coloniality (see: Livingstone [2003] Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge; Saini [2019] Superior: The Return of Race Science; Poskett [2022] Horizons: A Global History of Science; Raja et al. [2022] Nat. Ecol. & Evol. 6, pp.145-154).
Talking about privilege in ways that foment white fragility, guilt or paralysis doesn’t help anyone. However, if people can recognise and then steward their privilege – for instance, as a grantmaker, admitting non-normative perspectives and problems – then I think this is how communities work towards undoing racism and inequity. It is also worth remembering that Foucault’s understanding of power is as much generative as disciplinary. EA wields power productively, by defining a population over which health interventions can be administered, to improve overall wellbeing.
On scarcity:
Without a question, not everyone has the resources they need to live a healthy, happy, fulfilled life. However, my point is that what the most powerful epistemic actors discursively label as scarcity creates what we perceive as scarcity in society (Althusser called this ‘interpellation’). Therefore, the first step to overcoming how capitalism exacerbates inequality and interpellates scarcity is to disentangle what constitutes a lack of resources that 8 billion humans genuinely need from what resources are scarce because capitalism convinces us we need them to get ahead. So, whilst I entirely agree that many people lack the bare necessities of life (i.e., they are scarce), I want EA to realise how it participates in the discourse of scarcity that forecloses the possibility of other economic frameworks, built on the wealth found in community, joy and other non-material forms abundance.
Quantitative approaches:
I’ll be sure to read Superforecasting by Tetlock—thanks for the recommendation. Quantitative approaches have brought big strides in progress; all I’m asking is that EA does not neglect what cannot be quantified accurately, or what, if quantified, might pave a road towards commodification.
Methods’ track records:
I think your comment about critical theory not having a good track record misunderstands the systemic nature of the geopolitics of knowledge. We need to listen to diverse viewpoints and include diverse voices, but that alone is insufficient to challenge how non-hegemonic knowledge can only be admitted, heard, and acted upon if it submits to the terms of the dominant epistemic culture. So, yes, we can get to work and update our perspectives, but the most valuable work is to challenge the knowledge architecture of the movement in the first place. This is what social movements and unions try to do. Critical theory is merely the route that admits this into the academy via continental philosophy and citation patterns – aka, expressed within the dominant epistemic culture.
General comment on the idea that EA is opposed to social change:
Thanks for flagging these charities and movements to me.
EA can question the dynamics of power, and I agree that it does; my essay is focused, however, on the structures of power that EA may not realise it is participating within, such as its sanctioning of massive private wealth by encouraging billionaires to join EA-backed philanthropy. I’m arguing that this may be an impediment to EA seeing what is most effective or engaging other social movements, which dislike EA’s lack of attention to power and oppression.
You’ve phrased this very nicely: “Some people like doing good with statistics, some people like doing good with organizing, those preferences lend themselves to different cause areas, and I am very grateful to both groups of people.” Both areas should cross-fertilize each other, and accept different epistemic norms, and this requires engaging non-antagonistically with different admissibility criteria for evidence.
Tropical rainforest example:
My argument is not that EA would commodify the Amazon per se, but that it may be impossible for EA to identify the most effective strategy from the perspective of Amazonian residents. EA’s quantification process may participate within forms of carbon colonialism, even if this is never intended. Again, the power of critical theory is to unpick mechanism of power/knowledge which are otherwise naturalized.
Thanks again for your engagement, and I hope my comments are useful.
This reads (at least to me) as taking a softer line than the original piece, so there’s not as much I disagree with, and quite a lot that’s closer to my own thinking too. I might add more later, but this was already a useful exchange for me, so thanks again for writing and for the reply! I have upvoted (I upvoted the original also), and I hope you find your interactions on here constructive.
Edit: One thing that seems worth acknowledging: I agree there is a distinctive form of ‘meta-’ reflection that is required if you want be meaningfully inclusive, and my reply didn’t capture that with ‘listen to diverse viewpoints, use that to update very hard...‘. I think your ‘challenge the knowledge architecture’ phrase is fuzzy but is getting at something useful, as the process definitely involves updating your heuristics around what sorts of contributions are valuable (versus e.g. just listening to people from different backgrounds for contributions that you consider valuable). I am inclined to credit social movements and not critical theory with figuring out how to do this though, and participating in social movements with being the best way to get better at it yourself!
I actually think that the fact that they used critical theory in a non-moral context is very serious evidence that this article is a hit piece, and the claim that there is no objective evidence is a favorite claim of people who’s beliefs wouldn’t stand up to the objective evidence that doesn’t favor their argument.
Essentially, what this post is done is come in with an argument against EA and capitalism with the bottom line precomputed already, then denies that objective evidence can exist, probably because the evidence that is there doesn’t support his thesis that capitalism is bad, and supports the opposite thesis that capitalism is good. It’s a hit piece against EA.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I have a few reactions to reading it:
EA as a consequence of capitalism
I just want to call out that this in itself isn’t a valid criticism of EA, any more than it would be a valid criticism of the social movements that you favour. But I suspect you agree with this, so let’s move on.
EA as a form of capitalism
I think you’ve made a category error here. I hear your comment that ‘critical theorists have long viewed capital in extra-monetary terms’, but whatever resource we’re talking about, the kind of capitalist system you’re describing is people trying to grab as much of that resource as possible for themselves. That’s what the ‘maximization’ is all about.
EA is not trying to use time, money, and labour to maximally hoard resources, it’s using them to try and maximally improve the long-term future/alleviate suffering/avoid extinction risks/etc.
I would expect any social movement you care about to be doing something similar with regards to its own goals. I do hear that you have concerns about focusing too hard on efficiency/optimization, but I don’t agree that this is the property of capitalism that causes harm, rather its lack of a means to incentivise optimizing for public (vs private) goods.
EA as a facilitator of capitalism
I would really like concrete examples if you’re going to make this argument. My impression is that people tend to make this case without providing any, and as a result I’m highly sceptical of the claim.
Can you show me a couple of case studies where an EA-backed aid program plausibly thwarted meaningful political change that would otherwise have occurred in some area of the world? Without that, I don’t think we can have a productive conversation on this point.
I accept that aid is sometimes used to disingenuously manipulate public opinion, but I do not think the correct response to this is to stop trying to help people! (I think this would be true even if most aid was given in bad faith).
I also think the idea that EA funds help bad actors to better disingenuously manipulate public opinion doesn’t make sense. I think most of the public would consider EA funds a pretty weird place to put money, and even if some bad actor could claim they saved 100x as many lives and EA had helped them do it, our cognitive biases around large numbers mean this probably wouldn’t play significantly better in terms of PR. The extra 99x lives saved, however, would remain saved.
Finally, I am strongly against any line of thinking that implies we should deliberately be more neglectful so people in need get angry and revolt, ultimately making things better in the long run. You don’t go this far in your piece, but I think you get pretty close.
There are many reasons I think this kind of idea is wrongheaded, but for a start I think it’s disrespectful to those in suffering to act like they somehow need to be ‘prodded’ into realizing things could work better than they do, and doubly so to try and do this by deliberately abstaining from helping them when it’s within your ability to do so. I hope we can agree on that!
Foucault, Critical Theory, etc.
I actually spent some time at university in the post-Kantian philosophy space. There was a point when I really liked it, but now I find it problematically navel-gazey.
For example, claiming a worldview that values ‘joy, community, and non-human life’ would somehow ‘de-reify’ scarcity as something that actually exists in the world seems completely unhelpful to me. Scarcity pretty straightforwardly predates capitalism and feudalism (see starvation), and I think having a joy- and community-based value system comes nowhere close to building the structures that will let us avoid it.
That said, ‘EA-admissible data therefore only captures a small fraction of total ideas’ is correct, and I tend to agree with you that EA should act a lot more like it (post here). I just encourage you not to push this to the point where you’re making statements like ‘objective evidence doesn’t exist’. Even if they are in some sense true, they are totally impractical, and so are (rightfully, I think) offputting to most people.
I think you mostly bring critical theory up in the context of deciding what evidence to act on. For all of its flaws, including, as you say, that it inevitably falls short of being fully inclusive, focused and quantitative approaches have yielded some pretty amazing results.
What pushed me over into the EA consensus here is Philip Tetlock’s Superforecasting. There’s something about being able to consistently predict the future better than everyone else that I find pretty convincing, and Tetlock’s background is also in the humanities. I really recommend reading it.
I agree it is very important that people get to work on projects in areas without pre-researched interventions or randomized control trials they can use to argue their ideas will work, because I think your observations relating to diversity and bias in who gets to have those things funded are correct. I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with an ecosystem that decides to focus on areas where the RCTs do already exist.
Finally, I care about a method of change’s track record, and I’m not particularly convinced by critical theory in this area (you might want to look into Martin Heidegger’s politics). I want to take their insights around how atypical and underleveraged it is to listen to diverse viewpoints, use that to update very hard on the views of people with different experiences and backgrounds to my own, and then get to work.
In the volunteering that I have done, no other part of the critical theory you cite throughout your piece has proven particularly useful. It’s worth noting that unions and social movements predate critical theory!
General comment on the idea that EA is opposed to social change
EA is not opposed to social change movements. I donate to Sunrise Movement on the recommendation of https://www.givinggreen.earth/ , there is also https://www.socialchangelab.org/ .
I regularly hear criticism along the lines of ‘EA by its very structure cannot question the dynamics of power, it can only work within the existing political system’, and I think this is straightforwardly false.
Political system change certainly isn’t a focus of EA from what I’ve seen, but that is mostly because EA folks tend to like numbers and statistics, which can’t be leveraged in quite such interesting ways when working with grassroots organizations. The typical elite background of EAs probably also makes grassroots organization unappealing on some aesthetic level too to be fair, which seems more problematic.
That said, this says something about the personal preferences of the EA community, but it does not render EA opposed to other communities doing grassroots work. In specific cases where EA gets in the way of another community, of course they should communicate and try to resolve the issue, but generally I think the best solution is pretty clearly to live and let live.
Some people like doing good with statistics, some people like doing good with organizing, those preferences lend themselves to different cause areas, and I am very grateful to both groups of people.
Tropical rainforest example
I want to hear more about this, as based on what you’ve written it sounds like a great cause to prioritize. (I acknowledge that you’re worried EA cause-prioritizing the amazon will lead to commodifying the amazon, and hopefully I’ve explained why I disagree with that above).
Hi tcelferact,
Thank you for taking the time to engage so deeply with my essay. I apologise for the delay in replying. I’ve been on holiday since I posted, and unfortunately I’ve been unable to reply as fully as I wanted until now. I’ll offer some thoughts and responses I have after reading your valuable comments.
EA as a form of capitalism:
I agree that EA does not try to hold onto the material resources that pass through its actors. I also agree that all social movements must accumulate extra-monetary forms of capital, such as knowledge, social capital and political buy-in.
What I want to question, however, is how the EA movement processes its resources in ways that facilitate and mimic capitalism. You state that incentivising for public goods is the core problem under capitalism. I concur, but my argument is that EA makes it easier for their disincentivization because it tries to make the process of addressing externalities as efficient as possible, conducted privately. EA plugs the gaps caused by structural economic inequality (like unequal currency exchange or the lack of reparations for centuries of slavery), rather than centring these as the fundamental issues at stake. System-wide problems cannot be fixed overnight, and I agree there is a moral duty to alleviate suffering most efficiently. Yet, my concern is that EA becomes myopic because of its intense focus on the latter.
EA as a facilitator of capitalism:
The major thrust of my piece is to argue that the aid movement is structurally embedded within capitalist priorities of the Global North, even if it aims to be as effective as possible within this paradigm. I do not argue that aid is being used to disingenuously manipulate public opinion or that EA is a better vehicle than any other for hoodwinking the public. Critical theory is not about conspiracy, but about providing tools to unpick the naturalization of power.
Throughout my piece, I am also clear that we should never neglect people in need. I argued that we still need EA’s insights, just as people in food poverty need food banks in the Global North, but this should not neglect us from trying to work towards identifying the structures underpinning suffering. Nor do I suggest that deprivation would somehow prod people in the Global South into action. Indeed, my argument is the converse: people in the Global South are full of ideas and solutions – yet the EA community needs prodding towards creating the epistemic architecture to listen to more of these.
Unfortunately, concrete sociological examples of the behaviour of ultrawealthy people are rare. It is a highly under-researched field, due to difficulties accessing this secretive, exclusive population and researcher biases towards studying more oppressed groups. One example I am aware of is Justin Farrell’s (2021) book Billionaire Wilderness, which is an ethnographic and quantitative study of philanthropocapitalism in Teton Country, Wyoming, the richest county in the US. Farrell quantitatively traced how his contacts socialized with each other, donated to local environmental and educational charities, as well as examining their attitudes through in-depth interviews. Farrell found clear evidence that philanthropy acted as “a valuable form of social currency in the community” with an emergent status market. He documents how the influx of great wealth created a greater need for this local charity, due to its inflation of the local real estate market. He argues, on the basis of this data, that there was a “strong tendency towards politically safe projects that reinforce the status quo” and preserve social philanthropic networks (p.g.160). This philanthropic field is very different to EA’s global, evidence-backed philanthropy. However, I’m inclined to agree with Farrell’s conclusion that “most rich philanthropists are neither entirely good Samaritans, giving altruistically for the purity of a cause, nor are they entirely evil colonialists with hidden self-interest or ideas of self-aggrandizement”.
Foucault, critical theory, etc.
I think critical theory can often appear “problematically navel-gazey” because it asks that people with greater privilege interrogate the way in which they participate in structures of power, which is something they are unaccustomed to, even if they are inclined to scrutinize evidence. Social scientists call this ‘reflexivity’, and it can be unsettling and difficult. For instance, it can be uncomfortable to appreciate how Western science facilitated colonialism and how it remains suffused with coloniality (see: Livingstone [2003] Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge; Saini [2019] Superior: The Return of Race Science; Poskett [2022] Horizons: A Global History of Science; Raja et al. [2022] Nat. Ecol. & Evol. 6, pp.145-154).
Talking about privilege in ways that foment white fragility, guilt or paralysis doesn’t help anyone. However, if people can recognise and then steward their privilege – for instance, as a grantmaker, admitting non-normative perspectives and problems – then I think this is how communities work towards undoing racism and inequity. It is also worth remembering that Foucault’s understanding of power is as much generative as disciplinary. EA wields power productively, by defining a population over which health interventions can be administered, to improve overall wellbeing.
On scarcity:
Without a question, not everyone has the resources they need to live a healthy, happy, fulfilled life. However, my point is that what the most powerful epistemic actors discursively label as scarcity creates what we perceive as scarcity in society (Althusser called this ‘interpellation’). Therefore, the first step to overcoming how capitalism exacerbates inequality and interpellates scarcity is to disentangle what constitutes a lack of resources that 8 billion humans genuinely need from what resources are scarce because capitalism convinces us we need them to get ahead. So, whilst I entirely agree that many people lack the bare necessities of life (i.e., they are scarce), I want EA to realise how it participates in the discourse of scarcity that forecloses the possibility of other economic frameworks, built on the wealth found in community, joy and other non-material forms abundance.
Quantitative approaches:
I’ll be sure to read Superforecasting by Tetlock—thanks for the recommendation. Quantitative approaches have brought big strides in progress; all I’m asking is that EA does not neglect what cannot be quantified accurately, or what, if quantified, might pave a road towards commodification.
Methods’ track records:
I think your comment about critical theory not having a good track record misunderstands the systemic nature of the geopolitics of knowledge. We need to listen to diverse viewpoints and include diverse voices, but that alone is insufficient to challenge how non-hegemonic knowledge can only be admitted, heard, and acted upon if it submits to the terms of the dominant epistemic culture. So, yes, we can get to work and update our perspectives, but the most valuable work is to challenge the knowledge architecture of the movement in the first place. This is what social movements and unions try to do. Critical theory is merely the route that admits this into the academy via continental philosophy and citation patterns – aka, expressed within the dominant epistemic culture.
General comment on the idea that EA is opposed to social change:
Thanks for flagging these charities and movements to me.
EA can question the dynamics of power, and I agree that it does; my essay is focused, however, on the structures of power that EA may not realise it is participating within, such as its sanctioning of massive private wealth by encouraging billionaires to join EA-backed philanthropy. I’m arguing that this may be an impediment to EA seeing what is most effective or engaging other social movements, which dislike EA’s lack of attention to power and oppression.
You’ve phrased this very nicely: “Some people like doing good with statistics, some people like doing good with organizing, those preferences lend themselves to different cause areas, and I am very grateful to both groups of people.” Both areas should cross-fertilize each other, and accept different epistemic norms, and this requires engaging non-antagonistically with different admissibility criteria for evidence.
Tropical rainforest example:
My argument is not that EA would commodify the Amazon per se, but that it may be impossible for EA to identify the most effective strategy from the perspective of Amazonian residents. EA’s quantification process may participate within forms of carbon colonialism, even if this is never intended. Again, the power of critical theory is to unpick mechanism of power/knowledge which are otherwise naturalized.
Thanks again for your engagement, and I hope my comments are useful.
This reads (at least to me) as taking a softer line than the original piece, so there’s not as much I disagree with, and quite a lot that’s closer to my own thinking too. I might add more later, but this was already a useful exchange for me, so thanks again for writing and for the reply! I have upvoted (I upvoted the original also), and I hope you find your interactions on here constructive.
Edit: One thing that seems worth acknowledging: I agree there is a distinctive form of ‘meta-’ reflection that is required if you want be meaningfully inclusive, and my reply didn’t capture that with ‘listen to diverse viewpoints, use that to update very hard...‘. I think your ‘challenge the knowledge architecture’ phrase is fuzzy but is getting at something useful, as the process definitely involves updating your heuristics around what sorts of contributions are valuable (versus e.g. just listening to people from different backgrounds for contributions that you consider valuable). I am inclined to credit social movements and not critical theory with figuring out how to do this though, and participating in social movements with being the best way to get better at it yourself!
I actually think that the fact that they used critical theory in a non-moral context is very serious evidence that this article is a hit piece, and the claim that there is no objective evidence is a favorite claim of people who’s beliefs wouldn’t stand up to the objective evidence that doesn’t favor their argument.
Essentially, what this post is done is come in with an argument against EA and capitalism with the bottom line precomputed already, then denies that objective evidence can exist, probably because the evidence that is there doesn’t support his thesis that capitalism is bad, and supports the opposite thesis that capitalism is good. It’s a hit piece against EA.
See these links for more details: A note is that if we consider all sentient beings, the curve of welfare does turn severely negative for animals under capitalism thanks to factory farming and habitat destruction, and without massive change the conclusion that capitalism has harmed sentient life outside humanity would probably hold. I do think there will be massive change, but unfortunately this century may not change much. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/089533003769204335 https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better-the-post-industrial-era/