Not opposed to the idea as an intellectual excercise. Given the massive amount of money, lobbying, and attention paid to politics in mainstream US society, I’m skeptical that EA involvement would move the needle much. It’s a pretty saturated field.
WillieG
Karma: 200
[Question] How important are differing cultural attitudes toward corruption?
Hey another Wolverine!
I had no idea the school funded things like this. I totally would’ve taken advantage of that when I was an undergrad.
I like the idea!
“This bundle originated out of anti-Calvinist polemics...”
I was raised in a Calvinist tradition, and during my exploration of the denomination’s history, it really seemed to me like there was a relationship between the rise of Calvinism (specifically Dutch Calvinism) and various proto-TESCREAL concepts like capitalism.
Late to seeing this, but it reminded me of the military debate over Effects Based Operations.
EBO holds that the effects of an action are more important than the action itself. This idea became prominent after the 1991 Gulf War, where the Air Force surgically destroyed Iraqi defenses by targeting key nodes and creating big second and third-order effects.
EBO enjoyed a decade or two of prominence, before the reality that most follow-on effects are hard to predict set in. The Gulf War involved targeting a closed and well understood system, where input X reliably created outputs Y and Z. Most environments aren’t like that...especially developing world chicken farms.
Today the military mostly relies on creating immediate first-order effects, rather than trying to predict the kind of amusing cascade you highlighted!
Thanks for writing this. It’s very reflective of my experience as a former military officer.
I’ll add (from an American perspective):
The military is a reliable means of upward socio-economic mobility, especially as an officer. To be reductive for a minute, EA often strikes me as a well-heeled Oxford/Boston/San Francisco club. As a son of a Midwestern UAW worker, I did not have the kind of background commonly associated with those places. I did well in my military career in a technical field, and had a few lucky breaks where I was invited into industry and academic circles in DC, Austin, and California. I doubt I could have made those connections without the institutional backing of the DoD.
I absolutely agree that the EA mindset is rare in the military (although we seem to be a minority in most contexts anyway). In my experience, you are more likely to encounter kindred spirits outside the combat arms career fields. In general, the more technical and education-laden a career field seemed to be, the more EA-ish people I encountered.
I love your points on the importance of developing leadership and organizational skills. One of the most common mistakes I see smart people (EA or not) make is the assumption that the most genius or technical person in the room is the best choice to lead. The best leaders I worked with were of generally above-average (but not genius) intelligence, with exceptional people skills and planning capacity. They surrounded themselves with smarter technical people, who acted as trusted advisors. The military follows a time-tested model that senior leaders are generalists, not specialists. Additionally, leadership is fundamentally about people. If you can’t muster up an ounce of charisma, you will not be an effective leader. I think these finer points are often lost in highly intellectual circles.
Good analysis.
One of the reasons why I chose Prohibition is because it’s a failed policy. A successful policy like the abolition of slavery introduces more potential for cognitive bias, like the tendency to view successful policies as inevitable or to support a position because of its success (“They like the strong horse.”)
I like to think that I would’ve been pro-abolition. But you’re right, I don’t know whether 19thC me would’ve considered slavery a tractable issue. I also think there would’ve been a values call at some point, when it became clear the only path to abolition was via organized violence (war). Now I’m curious about how abolitionist pacifist groups like the Quakers addressed the topic. I’m going to squeeze that into my research this week.
[Question] If EAs existed 100 years ago, would they support Prohibition?
If I can pull this thread...you previously wrote, “Maybe I have more faith in the market here than you do, but I do think that technical & scientific & economic advancement do in fact have a tendency to not only make everywhere better, but permanently so.”
In your opinion, is this an argument in favor of prioritizing pushing both EA money and people into communities like SV that are high-impact in terms of technological advancement?
I didn’t realize there was a resource out there to make these works more accessible. That’s awesome!
I’ve been meaning to write a post about how Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” should be required reading for anyone who wants to change the world. I wish I had read it before joining an (ultimately doomed) effort to promote human rights and democracy in a country where the average person can’t read. In hindsight, investing in literacy would’ve been a better use of our time.
Ouch that’s rough. I honestly think every Westerner working in global poverty/health should have to spend a month living in a low-trust society. The corruption and nepotism/tribalism I saw every day were astonishing to my sheltered eyes. It makes me wonder how any overseas org can accurately assess their impact, given the challenges in tracking money and goods, and confirming if they actually make it to their intended recipients.
Hey @Larks sorry for the delay. I wanted to touch base with one of my old colleagues to make sure I’m remembering everything correctly from 10+ years ago.
Yes, our plan did have a lot of weight on training key locals that we took on as employees (notably lawyers, but also a journalist and a few other “civil society” figures). I was involved in some of the hiring process, and we were very up front about wanting people who were committed for the long-term.
If we had known that the average person was going to get a visa and leave in a few years, I don’t think we would have reduced the training investment, but would have tried to find a way to screen for people who would genuinely stick around. For example, we spent a lot of time stiff-arming a local government official’s demands to hire his nephew. (Definitely a bad look for a human rights org to be doing nepotistic favors.) But apparently the official and his nephew are pretty firmly rooted in the country, so maybe it would’ve been an OK long-term investment? No easy answers I’m afraid.
From my rationality-married-with-emotion-and-values human brain, I agree with you. Evil indeed.
That said, I can see a dystopian future where Hyper-Rationalist Bot makes all decisions, and decides that “the greatest good for the greatest number” is best served by keeping human capital in the developing world, using the EA logic that capital in the developing world creates more utility than the same capital in the developed world. (In fact, HRB thinks we should send capable people from the developed world to the developing world to accelerate utility growth even more.)
Folks, I appreciate that this is an issue a lot of people are emotionally invested in. And I want to thank @NickLaing and @Tym for their substantive and carefully considered comments.
I do want to reiterate the question I asked at the end—Has anyone encountered formal policies (perhaps in HR?) about matters like this?
[Question] Should EAs help employees in the developing world move to the West?
One of my favorite tongue-in-cheek reviews of the rationalist community is “STEM nerds discovering philosophy.” I’m the other way around—a philosophy and theology nerd who is discovering STEM. My priors suggest there are no easy answers, and you will struggle with big questions like your post throughout your life.
In Christian theology, there are sins of commission and sins of omission (“We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”) Singer’s idea that you can be morally at fault for doing nothing is quite an old idea.
Yet...the same book that introduces the Parable of the Good Samartian and answers “Who is my neighbor?” in the most expansive way possible, also says this:
“But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 1 Timothy 5:8
IMO, EA is somewhat of a “luxury belief,” in the sense that it’s something one should engage in after the basic necessities of life are met. Maslow’s hierarchy applies at all times.
Speaking as a conservative EA, I often feel uneasy about advocating for public funds. I believe that taxpayer money is semi-sacred, given by my fellow citizens in the trust that it will be spent responsibly and frugally in the service of our society. Taxes are for our essentials—roads, schools, courts, etc. What’s non-essential should remain in the pockets of citizens, to enable their own vision of The Good and the pursuit of utility.
That’s why I love when EAs talk about earn to give and other ways to direct non-taxpayer funds toward EA goals. There’s a lot of opportunity for narrative-making there that would appeal to conservatives. A scrappy EA hustles hard to donate his/her personal wealth to causes that are maybe a bit unusual, but he’s passionate about. Many conservatives would respect that, even if it’s for something like shrimp welfare.
I appreciate this kind of outside the norm framing. Similarly, I’ve found myself wondering about the carbon impact of tariffs. Would the decrease in long-distance shipping be offset by the redundancy of having a factory in the US making the same widget made in China? I suspect there’s parallels with covid disruption to the global supply chain, to include the kind of economic impact you’re analyzing here.
It does seem like EA as a movement has matured (or maybe, less charitably, ossified) in what to focus on and how to approach it. In some ways that’s good, but I also see how having a less nebulous/freewheeling debate makes it easier for people to see where the focus is, and to decide it’s not interesting.
Perhaps this is similar to how Obama had very high approval ratings in his earliest days, when he was a blank canvas everyone projected their hopes and dreams onto. Then as he inevitably started making policies and choosing what to focus on, his approval rating slipped as initial supporters realized he wasn’t going to pursue free college, single-payer healthcare, etc.
I agree. I don’t think any amount of political donations or support would’ve made “We should give lots of taxpayer money to Africa” politically palatable in 2024. Enough voters were in an isolationist mood.