The Nonlinear Library EA - Priors and Prejudice by MathiasKB
Apr 22, 2024
11:54
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: Priors and Prejudice, published by MathiasKB on April 22, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
This post is easily the weirdest thing I've ever written. I also consider it the best I've ever written - I hope you give it a chance. If you're not sold by the first section, you can safely skip the rest.
I
Imagine an alternate version of the Effective Altruism movement, whose early influences came from socialist intellectual communities such as the Fabian Society, as opposed to the rationalist diaspora. Let's name this hypothetical movement the Effective Samaritans.
Like the EA movement of today, they believe in doing as much good as possible, whatever this means. They began by evaluating existing charities, reading every RCT to find the very best ways of helping.
But many effective samaritans were starting to wonder. Is this randomista approach really the most prudent? After all, Scandinavia didn't become wealthy and equitable through marginal charity. Societal transformation comes from uprooting oppressive power structures.
The Scandinavian societal model which lifted the working class, brought weekends, universal suffrage, maternity leave, education, and universal healthcare can be traced back all the way to 1870's where the union and social democratic movements got their start.
In many developing countries wage theft is still common-place. When employees can't be certain they'll get paid what was promised in the contract they signed and they can't trust the legal system to have their back, society settles on much fewer surplus producing work arrangements than is optimal.
Work to improve capacity of the existing legal structure is fraught with risk. One risks strengthening the oppressive arms used by the ruling and capitalist classes to stay in power.
A safer option may be to strengthen labour unions, who can take up these fights on behalf of their members. Being in inherent opposition to capitalist interests, unions are much less likely to be captured and co-opted. Though there is much uncertainty, unions present a promising way to increase contract-enforcement and help bring about the conditions necessary for economic development, a report by Reassess Priorities concludes.
Compelled by the anti-randomista arguments, some Effective Samaritans begin donating to the 'Developing Unions Project', which funds unions in developing countries and does political advocacy to increase union influence.
A well-regarded economist writes a scathing criticism of Effective Samaritanism, stating that they are blinded by ideology and that there isn't sufficient evidence to show that increases in labor power leads to increases in contract enforcement.
The article is widely discussed on the Effective Samaritan Forum. One commenter writes a highly upvoted response, arguing that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The professor is too concerned with empirical evidence, and fails to engage sufficiently with the object-level arguments for why the Developing Unions Project is promising.
Additionally, why are we listening to an economics professor anyways? Economics is completely bankrupt as a science, resting on empirically false ridiculous assumptions, and is filled with activists doing shoddy science to confirm their neoliberal beliefs.
I sometimes imagine myself trying to convince the Effective Samaritan why I'm correct to hold my current beliefs, many of which have come out of the rationalist diaspora.
I explain how I'm not fully bought into the analysis of labor historians, which credits labor unions and the Social Democratic movements for making Scandinavia uniquely wealthy, equitable and happy. If this were a driving factor, how come the descendants of Scandinavians who migrated to the US long before are doing just as well in America? Besides, even if I don't know enough to ...
This post is easily the weirdest thing I've ever written. I also consider it the best I've ever written - I hope you give it a chance. If you're not sold by the first section, you can safely skip the rest.
I
Imagine an alternate version of the Effective Altruism movement, whose early influences came from socialist intellectual communities such as the Fabian Society, as opposed to the rationalist diaspora. Let's name this hypothetical movement the Effective Samaritans.
Like the EA movement of today, they believe in doing as much good as possible, whatever this means. They began by evaluating existing charities, reading every RCT to find the very best ways of helping.
But many effective samaritans were starting to wonder. Is this randomista approach really the most prudent? After all, Scandinavia didn't become wealthy and equitable through marginal charity. Societal transformation comes from uprooting oppressive power structures.
The Scandinavian societal model which lifted the working class, brought weekends, universal suffrage, maternity leave, education, and universal healthcare can be traced back all the way to 1870's where the union and social democratic movements got their start.
In many developing countries wage theft is still common-place. When employees can't be certain they'll get paid what was promised in the contract they signed and they can't trust the legal system to have their back, society settles on much fewer surplus producing work arrangements than is optimal.
Work to improve capacity of the existing legal structure is fraught with risk. One risks strengthening the oppressive arms used by the ruling and capitalist classes to stay in power.
A safer option may be to strengthen labour unions, who can take up these fights on behalf of their members. Being in inherent opposition to capitalist interests, unions are much less likely to be captured and co-opted. Though there is much uncertainty, unions present a promising way to increase contract-enforcement and help bring about the conditions necessary for economic development, a report by Reassess Priorities concludes.
Compelled by the anti-randomista arguments, some Effective Samaritans begin donating to the 'Developing Unions Project', which funds unions in developing countries and does political advocacy to increase union influence.
A well-regarded economist writes a scathing criticism of Effective Samaritanism, stating that they are blinded by ideology and that there isn't sufficient evidence to show that increases in labor power leads to increases in contract enforcement.
The article is widely discussed on the Effective Samaritan Forum. One commenter writes a highly upvoted response, arguing that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The professor is too concerned with empirical evidence, and fails to engage sufficiently with the object-level arguments for why the Developing Unions Project is promising.
Additionally, why are we listening to an economics professor anyways? Economics is completely bankrupt as a science, resting on empirically false ridiculous assumptions, and is filled with activists doing shoddy science to confirm their neoliberal beliefs.
I sometimes imagine myself trying to convince the Effective Samaritan why I'm correct to hold my current beliefs, many of which have come out of the rationalist diaspora.
I explain how I'm not fully bought into the analysis of labor historians, which credits labor unions and the Social Democratic movements for making Scandinavia uniquely wealthy, equitable and happy. If this were a driving factor, how come the descendants of Scandinavians who migrated to the US long before are doing just as well in America? Besides, even if I don't know enough to ...