Informed opinions can still be biased, and we are being asked to “trust” her.
I am uncertain why someone would choose to figure out what other people’s area of expertise is from Twitter.
Well I am worried about political bias in EA. Her political opinions are supremely relevant.
On a strictly legal question such as “In situation X, does law Y apply” I would definitely trust her more than I would trust myself. But that is not the question that is being asked, the question that is being asked is “Will the action of funding Cosecha reduce incarceration while maintaining public safety” with the followup question of “Or is this about increasing illegal immigration by making it harder to deport illegals, opposing Trump and generally supporting left-wing causes?”
I don’t think that she can claim special knowledge or lack of bias in answering those questions. I think it’s hard for anyone to.
This is a rather large topic, I don’t think it would be wise to try and specify and defend that abstract claim in the same post as talking about a specific situation. I take it as given, at least here. Perhaps I will do a followup, but I think it would be hard to do the topic justice in, say, 5-10 hours which is what I realistically have.
Animal welfare activism is controversial, but it hasn’t been subsumed into the culture war in the way immigration, race and social justice have. Some parts of animal welfare activism, such as veganism are left-associated, but other parts like wild animal suffering and synthetic meat most certainly are not. So in my mind, animal welfare activism is suitable for EA involvement.
AI-risk as offputting is becoming less true over time, but EA should not be aiming to appeal to everyone. Rather I think that EA should be aiming to not take sides in tribal wars.
No, but in the specific case of the US culture war I think it is a bad idea to move in the “Black lives matter” direction. In the case of the tradeoff between incarceration and public safety, I don’t think there is any good reason to make it into a race issue, because that immediately sends the signal that you are interested in raising the status and outcomes of your “favorite” race at the cost of other races. This is a tradeoff situation where benefits targeted at a specific group will harm people who are not from that group in a fairly direct way.
On the other hand if GiveDirectly gives cash to women in some third world country, and that cash comes from voluntary payments in the west, it is going to be an improvement for everyone in the receiving community as their local economy is stimulated.