> As Alexander argues, if everyone donated 10% to effective charities it would end world poverty cure major diseases and start a major cultural and scientific renaissance but if everyone become devoted to systemic change we would probably have a civil war.
This is one part of this article I may disagree with.
The problem is that you assume away the question by saying that everyone donates to “effective” change. We could do the same thing with the comparator: What if everyone suddenly became interested in only the *best* systemic reform?
That would probably be a LOT better then whatever EA is doing. We would probably have a utopia within the year!
So you can’t really say that…
If we said that everyone donates their money to a charity they research and find is effective, which is much closer to the systemic change comparator, I doubt that a great deal would change. Perhaps we would see progress happen, but we could also see a massively well funded Luddite Christian government take over the world backed by all the rich elderly people.
I think you should just stick with the broader points about EA being good instead of this “everyone does X” stuff.
> As Alexander argues, if everyone donated 10% to effective charities it would end world poverty cure major diseases and start a major cultural and scientific renaissance but if everyone become devoted to systemic change we would probably have a civil war.
This is one part of this article I may disagree with.
The problem is that you assume away the question by saying that everyone donates to “effective” change. We could do the same thing with the comparator: What if everyone suddenly became interested in only the *best* systemic reform?
That would probably be a LOT better then whatever EA is doing. We would probably have a utopia within the year!
So you can’t really say that…
If we said that everyone donates their money to a charity they research and find is effective, which is much closer to the systemic change comparator, I doubt that a great deal would change. Perhaps we would see progress happen, but we could also see a massively well funded Luddite Christian government take over the world backed by all the rich elderly people.
I think you should just stick with the broader points about EA being good instead of this “everyone does X” stuff.
This is a reason why convincing people to be effective altruists is better than replacing EA with political activism.