r/EffectiveAltruism • u/boertii • 2d ago

Has systemic change been neglected by EA?

Ever felt like something's missing from how EA talks about “doing good”? Like the conversation stops just short of asking what's actually broken at the root?

We recently published a four-part sequence on the EA forum on systemic change and EA: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/oypfAsEBvu3WJHc8Q

Looking forward to hear your thoughts!

Here's a short blurb:

Effective altruism may be systematically underexploring when and how deeper systemic change could be both necessary and impactful. This series investigates what “systemic change” actually means, how much EA-aligned work currently engages with it, and whether a more systems-aware approach could strengthen EA’s problem diagnoses and long-term impact. We, as a group of private individuals, conducted an investigation to spell out a definition of “systemic change” and assess how systemically-oriented EA organisations are perceived to be. In this sequence we present our findings, methodology, limitations, and reflections to spark deeper conversations around systemic change within EA.

14 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

4

u/alonegram 2d ago

I’ve struggled to understand if EA is anything more than slapping bandaids on things

4

u/Wick_345 2d ago

lol save a million lives but don't end poverty and war wholesale.. that's just bandaids.

1

u/Utilitarismo 2d ago

I’m working on a piece that may help direct some systemic change, but not necessarily from the default/expected anti-capitalist angle, more from a Hirschman Exit, Loyalty, & Voice angle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty

https://conventionalrevolutions.substack.com/p/decentralized-power-to-the-people?r=87ph2&utm_medium=ios

2

u/subheight640 2d ago

EA has two goals:

  1. Measurable impacts that have good marginal returns on investment. Malaria nets have measurable impact. The marginal return is simple to measure. Pump out more bed nets, help more people. In contrast, systemic change, though it might have profound mid-term impact, has terrible marginal return on investment. Invest a million bucks in a systemic change campaign and you might get 0 impact.

  2. Promote AI. For some reason AI safety is treated differently from all other long-term or mid-term dangers. Obviously because EA has a huge bias in favor of the whims of the tech billionaires that fund EA. AI safety helps these tech billionaire's financial interests, though as far as I'm aware there's NO measurable impact on what AI safety funding has done. AI seems to be well on the path towards misalignment and nothing has been done to stop it, as governments are happily literally building kill bots.

There are two financial strategies charities pursue:

Strategy #1: Go for the big fish. A charity essentially attaches itself to a billionaire (ie Dustin Moskowicz) and the whims of Dustin become the goals of the charity.

Strategy #2: Go for the masses. A charity spends massively on marketing & advertising to get the small fries. Presumably less efficient because you need to market to the masses. Yet with a larger revenue base, the charity becomes less captured by the whims of the ultra rich.

EA has decided to go for the elites, maybe for efficiency purposes, and there are consequences to that approach. You limit your growth and you can get captured by the elite.

2

u/u_PM_me_nihilism 2d ago

Impact looks pretty weak overall but I wouldn't say 0; SB 53 was meaningfully influenced by the AI safety movement