I think this post is overall great, even though I favour animal over global health stuff right now, but doing stuff just for the optics feels really sleazy and naive utilitarian to me.
doing stuff just for the optics feels really sleazy and naive utilitarian to me.
I don’t think Henry is suggesting that, though (although I see how one could read observation 7 that way and welcome his clarification). The post is about movement “towards animal welfare interventions and away from global health interventions.”
At most, I read his post as suggesting things like (1) we may need to leave some stuff on the table because poor optics doom an effort requiring public support to failure, and (2) partially withdrawing from GH may not be a good idea in part for optics reasons. While one could disagree with those kinds of conclusions as well, I think they are more subtle and sophisticated than “doing stuff just for the optics.”
I wouldn’t advocate giving $100M to Make A Wish just for optics.
But you shouldn’t ignore optics, because it affects tractability and can have downstream effects on other parts of the movement.
In a decision between two options where it’s ambiguous which is better (global health vs animal welfare) but one has better optics, it is particularly relevant.
I think this post is overall great, even though I favour animal over global health stuff right now, but doing stuff just for the optics feels really sleazy and naive utilitarian to me.
I don’t think Henry is suggesting that, though (although I see how one could read observation 7 that way and welcome his clarification). The post is about movement “towards animal welfare interventions and away from global health interventions.”
At most, I read his post as suggesting things like (1) we may need to leave some stuff on the table because poor optics doom an effort requiring public support to failure, and (2) partially withdrawing from GH may not be a good idea in part for optics reasons. While one could disagree with those kinds of conclusions as well, I think they are more subtle and sophisticated than “doing stuff just for the optics.”
I wouldn’t advocate giving $100M to Make A Wish just for optics.
But you shouldn’t ignore optics, because it affects tractability and can have downstream effects on other parts of the movement.
In a decision between two options where it’s ambiguous which is better (global health vs animal welfare) but one has better optics, it is particularly relevant.