Thanks for the thoughtful comment!
So it’s not enough to be “no less democratic than other charity orgs”. I believe we should strive to be much more democratic than that average—which seems to me like a minority view here.
I do think that this position—“EA foundations aren’t unusually undemocratic, but they should still be a lot more democratic than they are”—is totally worthy of discussion. I think you’re also right to note that other people in the community tend to be skeptical of this position; I’m actually skeptical of it, myself, but I would be interested in reading more arguments in favor of it.
(My comment was mostly pushing back against the suggestion that the EA community is distinctly non-democratic.)
I’m assuming you’re right about the amount of democracy in other non-profits, but the situation in my country is actually different. All non-profits have members who can call an assembly and have final say on any decision or policy of the non-profit.
I’ve never heard of this—that sounds very like a really interesting institutional structure! Can I ask what you’re country you’re in, or if there’s anything to read on how this works in practice?
Every time the issue of taxes comes up, it’s a very popular opinion that people should avoid as much taxes as possible to redirect the money to what they personally deem effective. This is usually accompanied by insinuations that democratically elected governments are useless or harmful.
The first part of this does seem like a pretty common opinion to me—fair to point that out!
On the second: I don’t think “democratic governments are useless or harmful” is a popular opinion, if the comparison point is either to non-democratic governments or no government. I do think “government programs are often really inefficient or poorly targeted” and “governments often fail to address really important issues” are both common opinions, on the other hand, but I don’t really interpret these as being about democracy per se.[1]
One thing that’s also complicated, here, is that the intended beneficiaries of EA foundations’ giving tend to lack voting power in the foundations’ host countries: animals, the poor in other countries, and future generations. So trying to redirect resources to these groups, rather than the beneficiaries preferred by one’s national government, can also be framed as a response to the fact that (e.g.) the US government is insufficiently democratic: the US government doesn’t have any formal mechanisms for representing the interests of most of the groups that have a stake in its decisions. Even given this justification, I think it probably would still be a stretch to describe the community tendency here as overall “democratic” in nature. Nonetheless, I think it does at least make the situation a little harder to characterize.
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At least speaking parochially, I also think of these as relatively mainstream opinions in the US rather than opinions that feel distinctly EA. Something I wonder about, sometimes, is whether cross-country differences are underrated as a source of disagreement within and about the EA community. Your comment about how non-profits work in your country was also thought-provoking in this regard!
I really appreciate the donation to GovAI!
For reference, for anyone thinking of donating to GovAI: I would currently describe us as “funding constrained” — I do current expect financial constraints to prevent us from making program improvements/expansions and hires we’d like to make over the next couple years. (We actually haven’t yet locked down enough funding to maintain our current level of operation for the next couple years, although I think that will probably come together soon.)
We’ll be putting out a somewhat off-season annual report soon, probably in the next couple weeks, that gives a bit of detail on our current resources and what we would use additional funding for. I’m also happy to share more detailed information upon request, if anyone might be interested in donating and wants to reach out to me at ben.garfinkel@governance.ai.