Most of those people believe that there’s a consensus within EA that donations to Givewell’s top charities do more good than these systemic change donations, to a greater degree than there actually is.
Related to my other comment, but what would you guess is the split of donations from EAs to Givewell’s top charities versus ‘these systemic change donations’?
I ask because if it’s highly skewed, I would be strongly against pretending that we’re highly conflicted on this question while the reality of where we give says something very different; this question of how to represent ourselves accurately cuts both ways, and it is very tempting to try and be ‘all things to all people’.
All things considered, the limited data I have combined with anecdata from a large number of EAs suggests to me that it is in fact highly skewed.
A significant part of these confusions is due to EA simplifying its message in order to attract more people
I think this is backwards. The ‘systemic change’ objection, broadly defined, is by far the most common criticism of EA. Correspondingly, I think the movement would be much larger were it better-disposed to such interventions, largely neutralising this complaint and so appealing to a (much?) wider group of people.
Related to my other comment, but what would you guess is the split of donations from EAs to Givewell’s top charities versus ‘these systemic change donations’?
I ask because if it’s highly skewed, I would be strongly against pretending that we’re highly conflicted on this question while the reality of where we give says something very different; this question of how to represent ourselves accurately cuts both ways, and it is very tempting to try and be ‘all things to all people’.
All things considered, the limited data I have combined with anecdata from a large number of EAs suggests to me that it is in fact highly skewed.
I think this is backwards. The ‘systemic change’ objection, broadly defined, is by far the most common criticism of EA. Correspondingly, I think the movement would be much larger were it better-disposed to such interventions, largely neutralising this complaint and so appealing to a (much?) wider group of people.