All of henrycooksley's Comments + Replies

While I understand why this is a tempting and conflict-avoiding thing to say, (and is also literally true!), I think it would be a little disingenuous. The lack of EA research into many potential causes isn't simply an accident; research has been directed into areas that seem especially promising to the researcher (i.e. not just Important but also Neglected and Tractable, and ideally Quantifiable also). Given the natural sympathies of many EAs towards left-wing movements, I think it is reasonable to say that the reason EAs haven't published a lot of research into BLM as a cause area is because they generally don't expect it would look attractive - and I think the same is true for HK protests to a lesser degree. Assuming the other students are in favour of the HK protests, I'm not sure this is such a great approach. In general protests are not good for stability! The HK movement, by drawing attention to China's authoritarianism, seem to have increased conflict between the West and China - the US is currently introducing various new anti-CCP measures for example. Similarly the BLM protests in the US seem quite destabilising - to the extent that they literally received funding from the US's geopolitical opponents. It's of course possible that something could be destabilising and good, but that is a different argument. Unfortunately I think there is just not that much in common between EA and causes which seem neither neglected nor tractable. Overall I think Khorton's approach is best; individual EAs are of course free to have non-EA interests, but focusing on the most important issues, rather than being caught up in contemporary issues that get a lot of attention for non-EA reasons, is a key part of the distinctive value proposition of the movement.