I do believe we need more epistemic pluralism within EA to be robustely effective and these perspectives could really add to that. Specifically making sure that effectiveness is ranked according to the worldview and needs of the people effected (instead of the people trying to ‘help’ them) is of utmost important to be truly effective.
Besides that your worldview clearly contains a lot of theoretical and philosophical background that not everybody will agree with, even upon long and critical reflection. Nevertheless, there should also be options (in addition to the current career paths, and more paths for people from non-theoretical backgrounds) on 80.000 hours that are more in line with different kinds of epistemologies, including feminist, indigenous and decolonial ones
I couldn’t agree more with your sentence: “making sure that effectiveness is ranked according to the worldview and needs of the people effected (instead of the people trying to ‘help’ them) is of utmost important to be truly effective”.
I agree that for EA to claim to be truly effective, the EA community must thoughtfully consider feminist, decolonial and Indigenous critiques—though I fear that the epistemic architecture of EA (for reasons I try to unpick in my piece) may make it impossible for these to be voiced, heard and acted upon within EA.
Great piece!
I do believe we need more epistemic pluralism within EA to be robustely effective and these perspectives could really add to that. Specifically making sure that effectiveness is ranked according to the worldview and needs of the people effected (instead of the people trying to ‘help’ them) is of utmost important to be truly effective.
Besides that your worldview clearly contains a lot of theoretical and philosophical background that not everybody will agree with, even upon long and critical reflection. Nevertheless, there should also be options (in addition to the current career paths, and more paths for people from non-theoretical backgrounds) on 80.000 hours that are more in line with different kinds of epistemologies, including feminist, indigenous and decolonial ones
Hi Jitse,
Thanks for the positive feedback!!
I couldn’t agree more with your sentence: “making sure that effectiveness is ranked according to the worldview and needs of the people effected (instead of the people trying to ‘help’ them) is of utmost important to be truly effective”.
I agree that for EA to claim to be truly effective, the EA community must thoughtfully consider feminist, decolonial and Indigenous critiques—though I fear that the epistemic architecture of EA (for reasons I try to unpick in my piece) may make it impossible for these to be voiced, heard and acted upon within EA.