I’m not super knowledgeable about women’s suffrage, but
It was not universally supported by women (See e.g. here; I couldn’t quickly find stats but I’d be interested).
Surely the relevant support base in this case is those who had political power, and the whole point is that women didn’t. So “50% support” seems misleading in that sense.
I could similarly say “>99.999% of animals are nonhumans, so nonhuman animal welfare has an extremely large support base.” But that’s not the relevant support base for the discussion at hand.
I didn’t say universal or 50% support. Many women were against, many men were for. My point is that it had a stronger support base than shrimp welfare before we tried to regulate it.
The idea that you can go regulating without considering public support/resistance is silly
Sorry you’re right, you didn’t say this—I misread that part of your comment.
I still think your framing misses something important: the logic “50% of people are women so I think women’s suffrage had a pretty strong support base” applies at all points in time, so it doesn’t explain why suffrage was so unpopular for so long. Or to put it another way, for some reason the popularity and political influence of the suffrage movement increased dramatically without the percentage of women increasing, so I’m not sure the percentage of people who are women is relevant in the way you’re implying.
The idea that you can go regulating without considering public support/resistance is silly
On the other hand I didn’t say this! The degree of public support is certainly relevant. But I’m not sure what your practical takeaway or recommendation is in the case of an unpopular movement.
For example you point out abolition as an example where resistance caused massive additional costs (including the Civil War in the US). I could see points 1, 3, 7, and possibly 8 all being part of a “Ways I see the Quaker shift to abolitionism backfiring” post. They could indeed be fair points that Quakers / other abolitionists should have considered, in some way—but I’m not sure what that post would have actually wanted abolitionists to do differently, and I’m not sure what your post wants EAs to do differently.
Maybe you just intend to be pointing out possible problems, without concluding one way or another whether the GH → AW shift is overall good or bad. But I get a strong sense from reading it that you think it’s overall bad, and if that’s the case I don’t know what the practical upshots are.
I’m not super knowledgeable about women’s suffrage, but
It was not universally supported by women (See e.g. here; I couldn’t quickly find stats but I’d be interested).
Surely the relevant support base in this case is those who had political power, and the whole point is that women didn’t. So “50% support” seems misleading in that sense.
I could similarly say “>99.999% of animals are nonhumans, so nonhuman animal welfare has an extremely large support base.” But that’s not the relevant support base for the discussion at hand.
I didn’t say universal or 50% support. Many women were against, many men were for. My point is that it had a stronger support base than shrimp welfare before we tried to regulate it.
The idea that you can go regulating without considering public support/resistance is silly
Sorry you’re right, you didn’t say this—I misread that part of your comment.
I still think your framing misses something important: the logic “50% of people are women so I think women’s suffrage had a pretty strong support base” applies at all points in time, so it doesn’t explain why suffrage was so unpopular for so long. Or to put it another way, for some reason the popularity and political influence of the suffrage movement increased dramatically without the percentage of women increasing, so I’m not sure the percentage of people who are women is relevant in the way you’re implying.
On the other hand I didn’t say this! The degree of public support is certainly relevant. But I’m not sure what your practical takeaway or recommendation is in the case of an unpopular movement.
For example you point out abolition as an example where resistance caused massive additional costs (including the Civil War in the US). I could see points 1, 3, 7, and possibly 8 all being part of a “Ways I see the Quaker shift to abolitionism backfiring” post. They could indeed be fair points that Quakers / other abolitionists should have considered, in some way—but I’m not sure what that post would have actually wanted abolitionists to do differently, and I’m not sure what your post wants EAs to do differently.
Maybe you just intend to be pointing out possible problems, without concluding one way or another whether the GH → AW shift is overall good or bad. But I get a strong sense from reading it that you think it’s overall bad, and if that’s the case I don’t know what the practical upshots are.