Have you looked into why SC failed and if there’s parallels between its organizational structure and EA’s? Although you’ve convincingly argued that in many of the specifics the two movements differ significantly, there might be useful insights into how to prevent failure modes in a more general sense of a movement seeking to improve altruism.
The movement started around 1870 and was still appears to have been active around 1894 (latest handbook in OP). WW1 was 1914-1918 and WW2 1939-1945. I’d like to know if it survived to 1945. If it did this is its cut off since my guess is that it died very quickly after WW2 when eugenics very rapidly spread throughout the world’s collective consciousness as an unspeakable evil. I imagine the movement couldn’t adapt quickly enough to bad PR and silently faded or rebranded itself. For instance, the Charity Organization Society of Denver, Colorado, is the forerunner of the modern United Way of America.
So I imagine the lesson for EA is to beware the rapid and irreversible effects of having EA tied implicitly to something everyone everywhere has suddenly started to hate in the strongest possible terms. This is probably why it is a good idea for EA to stay out of politics. Once you associate a movement with something political, good luck disassociating yourself when some major bad stuff happens. Or maybe the lesson is just that EA should beware WW3. Who knows.
Have you looked into why SC failed and if there’s parallels between its organizational structure and EA’s? Although you’ve convincingly argued that in many of the specifics the two movements differ significantly, there might be useful insights into how to prevent failure modes in a more general sense of a movement seeking to improve altruism.
The movement started around 1870 and was still appears to have been active around 1894 (latest handbook in OP). WW1 was 1914-1918 and WW2 1939-1945. I’d like to know if it survived to 1945. If it did this is its cut off since my guess is that it died very quickly after WW2 when eugenics very rapidly spread throughout the world’s collective consciousness as an unspeakable evil. I imagine the movement couldn’t adapt quickly enough to bad PR and silently faded or rebranded itself. For instance, the Charity Organization Society of Denver, Colorado, is the forerunner of the modern United Way of America.
So I imagine the lesson for EA is to beware the rapid and irreversible effects of having EA tied implicitly to something everyone everywhere has suddenly started to hate in the strongest possible terms. This is probably why it is a good idea for EA to stay out of politics. Once you associate a movement with something political, good luck disassociating yourself when some major bad stuff happens. Or maybe the lesson is just that EA should beware WW3. Who knows.