Thanks for the feedback. The way I envision it, it wouldn't require any profound change of anyone's attitude. There are so many businesses doing round-up for charity around the world. If someone were to sleuth around and put in the time, surely they could identify the low-hanging-fruit of businesses that are happy to change their round-up charity at the credit card reader without much convincing.
Of all the people in the position to change the setting on the credit card reader at their small business (if that's even how it works) some of them may be r...
Thanks for posting. I've been trying to find the best place to donate in blindness prevention for a few giving cycles now.
Intuitively, it feels like interventions without the direct goal of mortality prevention, like preventing blindness, could achieve nearly as much good over the years as preventing deaths.
For me the ironic thing about critiquing current practices of EA is that it is, in itself, an act of EA.
The same can't necessarily be said for critiquing the underlying premise of EA.
Hey Aaron -- really want to sit down and read this thoroughly when I have a moment. Someone sent me the link to your post, otherwise, I haven't been on EA Forum for a minute.
That said, I did a talk on just this topic back at the EA Global "Unconference" over the summer. Would love to maybe be in touch about this idea...the link to my talk is here:
Ah, okay. So tractability is built into the term "most important"?
I thought they were two separate concepts: https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/importance-neglectedness-tractability/
I agree that all that really matters is how effective a particular intervention will be in reducing suffering for the amount of money you plan to donate. Other metrics (especially neglectedness) are just heuristics.
Kind of unrelated, but I've wondered about these first two considerations that people use to pick a charity, as listed above:
1) which cause is most important
2) which interventions in the cause are most effective
Couldn't there be a cause that is extremely important but just that don't have any good interventions? Maybe there is a "most effective" intervention for this cause, but it's still not that good, and donating to that intervention doesn't really result in much.
I hate to admit it, but I think there does exist a utilitarian trade-off between marketability and accuracy. Although I'm thrilled that the EA movement prides itself on being as factually accurate as possible and I believe the core EA movement absolutely needs to stick with that, there is a case to be made that an exaggerated truth may be an important teaching tool in helping non-EAs understand why EAs do what they do.
It seems likely that Peter Singer's example has had a net-positive impact, despite the inaccuracies. Even I was originally drawn to EA...
My video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0AiIMeyxWk
All the Unconference videos are in a playlist, above!
Thanks, Michael! I would definitely love to have the talk linked from EA Hub. Cafelow, is that a possibility?
I have definitely checked out SHIC and skimmed through their materials. My initial concept for teaching in schools has a notable distinction from them. Before considering the idea of internal vs. external movement building, my concept was to do a single lesson, spark a lightbulb moment with a student or two who might be EA-inclined, give them a copy of "Doing Good Better," and then move on. Coming back for more lessons with the same class ...
Thank you. This is definitely at least part of what I was remembering! Was there a separate one then involving arguments for EA remaining apolitcal? (I know there's may be small mentions of that on several episodes.)
Glad you are doing this, thank you! It's peripherally related but I'm curious if you have any insight on the effectiveness of giving money to political campaigns, especially for races that might be on the fence between two very different candidates.
Sounds interesting! I'm curious what circling actually entails. Could you describe what happens in one of the sessions?
I think this is a great idea. There's definitely an ideal of what it means to be EA that is set by the demands of moral philosophy and by EA superstars. However, there is a limit to what most people (even the superstars) can reasonably accomplish. It could be helpful to highlight the struggle between the ideal and the practical, and what each guest is doing to try to improve.
I have professional experience in audio engineering so let me know if you have any questions on that front, and would love to be a guest at some point (you can see my project on this page.)
I like your idea that the applicability of EA concepts in daily life decision-making can be used to show EA as a powerful tool. I haven't specifically done that yet but have considered it.
I had expected to get pushback when I first started teaching about prioritizing causes and was careful about how I introduced it. However, students don't really push back on it, and when we work through examples, they do understand why an EA might prioritize, for example, schistosomiasis charities over cancer ones. That said, based on post-lesson surveys, that ...
Thanks! I'm 100% with you on the idea that real-world examples can help people to understand the importance of EA. Peter Singer does it well, and I start off my presentation for high school/college students by giving them a hypothetical amount of money and working through a decision about where to donate.
Sometimes I use an example of a firefighter in a burning building. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that the firefighter will be able to save everyone so some tough decisions have to be made in order to save the most people in a finite amount of time.
I think the more people working on good ways to promote EA ideas, the better; I'd love to hear about whatever you work on.
Thanks for the comment! I've definitely had to choose my battles when making my "elevator pitch" to non EA people who may have limited time or interest. It's an interesting idea to go the next level: not just what and how should we tell people about EA in general, but very literally, what and how should we tell people about EA when given certain real-world time constraints.
Some form of importance, as you mentioned, and ease of explaining, should be factors, I agree. I'd say those are similar but not entirely the same as these two o...
Premise
When I first started calling myself an Effective Altruist, it was hard to talk about EA to other people. If it came up, I would find myself backed into a corner, ultimately trying to defend utilitarianism to someone who didn’t want to be convinced. These conversations didn’t feel productive. So for a while, I kept EA to myself.
Eventually I looked for carefully-worded, clear ways to explain EA concepts that are non-contentious but still retain fidelity to the heart and values ...
I'm happy to have read this! This is a well-articulated post about something I've been thinking about for a while.
I definitely intuit that it's more important to reduce suffering than to increase pleasure. I wonder how much of my suffering-focused viewpoint is due to a bias: hearing stories about other people suffering makes me quite sad, but hearing about other people being extremely happy doesn't tend to make me that happy unless it's someone I know personally, or maybe someone who has a relatable backstory.
Maybe our sense of em...
Thanks, Luke. When I have some more time I might brainstorm next steps on this including how to put together a team. If so, I'll reach out!