Should we be doing politics at all? Some (very rough) thoughts

Abstract

This bit of pondering was beyond the scope of the manuscript I was writing (a followup to this post, which is why the examples are all about anti-rodenticide interventions), but I still wanted to share it. Cut from rough draft, lightly edited it so it would make sense to Forum readers and to make the tone more conversational. It is often difficult to directly engage in political campaigns without incentives to lie or misrepresent. This is exacerbated by the differences in expected communication styles in politics vs the general public vs EA. There is a tradition of strong arguments in broader EA (+rationality) culture for EAs to entirely steer away from politics for both epistemic and effectiveness reasons. I find these arguments persuasive but wonder whether they have become an unquestioned dogma. We don’t hold any other class of interventions to the standards we hold political interventions. I find it hard to believe that effective charities working in developing countries never have to do ethically dubious things, like giving bribes, because refusing to do so would make it impossible to get anything done within the local culture. Yet EAs often consider it unacceptable for other EAs to engage in “politician-speak” or play political games to win a valuable election.