I'm one of the contact people for the effective altruism community. I work at CEA as a community liaison, trying to support the EA community in addressing problems and being a healthy and welcoming community.
Please feel free to contact me at julia.wise@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.
Besides effective altruism, I'm interested in folk dance and trying to keep up with my three children.
A counter-example of a movement that had a burst of success, then an embarrassing decline, then revived: the early animal welfare movement. From my summary: "Lost steam after an initial burst of fundraising. Office was closed and they met in coffee houses. Main staff member was jailed for the society’s debts, another staff member continued working as a volunteer. Fortune turned when Princess Victoria (later Queen) and her mother decided they liked the organization, became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals."
My best guess is that EA didn't really engage much with this, because they never engaged much with starvation relief as an intervention.
The closest thing I can remember is holding up Norman Borlaug as an example of a very impactful career (implicitly in favor of bioengineering food).
A model I think is interesting, though I don't favor it as a good fit for an international field / movement like all of EA: When talking to EA groups in Nordic countries (EA Norway, etc), I was surprised at the extent of membership and elections as the basic means of operating any group there. If I understand right, members pay a fee to be members, and the expectation is that everyone will travel to an in-person annual meeting to vote for various leadership roles. This helps address the question of who's involved enough to get a vote.
Coming from a geographically big country, it kind of blew my mind that everyone turns up in person at one location to vote. ("Surely you did it online during covid?" "Not in Sweden!") It's one way of making membership a bit costly, but it does favor members in the city where the voting is held.
I also notice that when I talk to people in some roles there, like the elected community contact person, they often don't have much experience because they were elected less than a year ago.
People with more understanding of this system would probably have more to say about its pros and cons.
Huh, I didn't realize this. My guess is that this is largely because most animal advocacy projects are based in the West, and most ducks are farmed in Asia. From: https://worldostats.com/animals-wildlife/duck-population-by-country/
Good writeup!
Pathways is another online treatment program. There are also workbooks like The Pain Management Workbook.
Hi! You might check out posts under the workplace advocacy tag: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/workplace-advocacy