The Nonlinear Library EA - The case for contributing to the 2024 US election with your time & money by alexlintz
Aug 21, 2024
38:31
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The case for contributing to the 2024 US election with your time & money, published by alexlintz on August 21, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Executive summary
We believe contributions to the 2024 US election are worthy of serious consideration. In particular, we believe this election is much more tractable and important than conventional wisdom within the EA community suggests. Many of our team members were previously working in AI safety/governance and have temporarily switched to focusing primarily on the election. We think more EAs should consider doing the same.
This election is much more tractable than most expect:
US presidential elections are often decided by slim margins in a few swing states (537 votes in 2000, 77,744 in 2016, and 42,918 in 2020).
The best polling data we have as of August 2024 is that 2024's margins will be in a similar range, with Harris very slightly favored to lose.
Given how small margins of victory have been, many organizations have arguably been responsible for flipping past presidential elections (and many more could have flipped them with relatively modest investments).
While a lot of good work is being done, poor incentives among established organizations attempting to elect Democrats result in many inefficiencies.
This election matters more than most give it credit for:
For any given EA cause area, there are strong reasons to believe Trump would cause considerable harm or fail to make important positive progress. While it's still unclear what a Trump administration will think of AI risk, it seems highly likely they'd be worse than a Harris administration.
Trump and allies have a clear game plan for eliminating most checks on the president's power and have demonstrated clear intent to harm America's democratic institutions.
A second Trump administration would already enjoy far more power due to a recent Supreme Court ruling (backed by Trump-appointed justices).
They've made it clear they intend to gut the civil service and fill it with loyalists as well as further expand presidential authority.
We worry that people have forgotten just how incompetent and amoral Trump is. A second administration, primarily selected for loyalty to Trump instead of domain expertise and integrity, dramatically increases the risk of many catastrophic outcomes (e.g., escalations in international tensions, nuclear war, adverse relationships with AI labs, etc.).
There are donation and volunteer opportunities which could meaningfully affect the chances of a Harris victory.
Research by a team we trust indicates the following are the most effective donation opportunities right now: American Independent Radio, the Center for US Voters Abroad, and Working America.
We're collecting useful volunteer opportunities (including some projects our team is planning) and would be happy to share them with you. You can sign up to hear more
here.
Our team is also raising money for some projects which are intuitively compelling and informed by data but lack a prior track record in an attempt to fill gaps in the space. Email us at civicleverageproject@gmail.com for more details.
Introduction
Working on US presidential elections is unique in that it plausibly allows many individuals, regardless of skill sets and power, to affect the trajectory of the entire world. The US is the world's most powerful state and the only superpower that is also a liberal democracy.
If one of the presidential candidates is expected to be much worse in important cause areas (e.g., protecting liberal democracy, AI safety, biosecurity, climate change, global health, or animal welfare), and if the election is expected to be very close, then contributing to helping the better candidate win has extraordinary value.
We know of no lever, other than the US presidential election, that allows as many...
Executive summary
We believe contributions to the 2024 US election are worthy of serious consideration. In particular, we believe this election is much more tractable and important than conventional wisdom within the EA community suggests. Many of our team members were previously working in AI safety/governance and have temporarily switched to focusing primarily on the election. We think more EAs should consider doing the same.
This election is much more tractable than most expect:
US presidential elections are often decided by slim margins in a few swing states (537 votes in 2000, 77,744 in 2016, and 42,918 in 2020).
The best polling data we have as of August 2024 is that 2024's margins will be in a similar range, with Harris very slightly favored to lose.
Given how small margins of victory have been, many organizations have arguably been responsible for flipping past presidential elections (and many more could have flipped them with relatively modest investments).
While a lot of good work is being done, poor incentives among established organizations attempting to elect Democrats result in many inefficiencies.
This election matters more than most give it credit for:
For any given EA cause area, there are strong reasons to believe Trump would cause considerable harm or fail to make important positive progress. While it's still unclear what a Trump administration will think of AI risk, it seems highly likely they'd be worse than a Harris administration.
Trump and allies have a clear game plan for eliminating most checks on the president's power and have demonstrated clear intent to harm America's democratic institutions.
A second Trump administration would already enjoy far more power due to a recent Supreme Court ruling (backed by Trump-appointed justices).
They've made it clear they intend to gut the civil service and fill it with loyalists as well as further expand presidential authority.
We worry that people have forgotten just how incompetent and amoral Trump is. A second administration, primarily selected for loyalty to Trump instead of domain expertise and integrity, dramatically increases the risk of many catastrophic outcomes (e.g., escalations in international tensions, nuclear war, adverse relationships with AI labs, etc.).
There are donation and volunteer opportunities which could meaningfully affect the chances of a Harris victory.
Research by a team we trust indicates the following are the most effective donation opportunities right now: American Independent Radio, the Center for US Voters Abroad, and Working America.
We're collecting useful volunteer opportunities (including some projects our team is planning) and would be happy to share them with you. You can sign up to hear more
here.
Our team is also raising money for some projects which are intuitively compelling and informed by data but lack a prior track record in an attempt to fill gaps in the space. Email us at civicleverageproject@gmail.com for more details.
Introduction
Working on US presidential elections is unique in that it plausibly allows many individuals, regardless of skill sets and power, to affect the trajectory of the entire world. The US is the world's most powerful state and the only superpower that is also a liberal democracy.
If one of the presidential candidates is expected to be much worse in important cause areas (e.g., protecting liberal democracy, AI safety, biosecurity, climate change, global health, or animal welfare), and if the election is expected to be very close, then contributing to helping the better candidate win has extraordinary value.
We know of no lever, other than the US presidential election, that allows as many...