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: Concerns with ACE's Recent Behavior, published by Hypatia on the effective altruism forum.

Epistemic Status: I feel pretty confident that the core viewpoint expressed in this post is correct, though I'm less confident in some specific claims. I have not shared a draft of this post with ACE, and so it’s possible I’ve missed important context from their perspective.

EDIT: ACE board member Eric Herboso has responded with his personal take on this situation. He believes some points in this post are wrong or misleading. For example, he disputes my claim that ACE (as an organization) attempted to cancel a conference speaker.

EDIT: Jakub Stencel from Anima International has posted a response. He clarifies a few points and offers some context regarding the CARE conference situation.

Background

In the past year, there has been some concern in EA surrounding the negative impact of “cancel culture”[1] and worsening discourse norms. Back in October, Larks wrote a post criticizing EA Munich's decision to de-platform Robin Hanson.The post was generally well-received, and there have been other posts on the forum discussing potential risks from social-justice oriented discourse norms. For example, see The Importance of Truth-Oriented Discussions in EAand EA considerations regarding increasing political polarization.

I'm writing this post because I think some recent behavior from Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) is a particularly egregious example of harmful epistemic norms in EA. This behavior includes:

Making (in my view) poorly reasoned statements about anti-racism and encouraging supporters to support or donate to anti-racist causes and organizations of dubious effectiveness

Attempting to cancel an animal rights conference speaker because of his views on Black Lives Matter, withdrawing from that conference because the speaker's presence allegedly made ACE staff feel unsafe, and issuing a public statement supporting its staff and criticizing the conference organizers

Penalizing charities in reviews for having leadership and/or staff who are deemed to be insufficiently progressive on racial equity, and stating it won't offer movement grants funding to those who disagree with its views on diversity, equity, and inclusion[2].

Because I'm worried that this post could hurt my future ability to get a job in EAA, I'm choosing to remain anonymous.

My goal here is to:

a) Describe ACE's behavior in order to raise awareness and foster discussion, since this doesn't seem to have attracted much attention, and

b) Give a few reasons why I think ACE's behavior has been harmful, though I’ll be brief since I think similar points have been better made elsewhere

I also want to be clear that I don't think ACE is the only bad actor here, as other areas of the EAA community have also begun to embrace harmful social-justice derived discourse norms[3]. However, I'm focusing my criticism on ACE here because:

It positions itself as an effective altruism organization, rather than a traditional animal advocacy organization

It is well known and generally respected by the EA community

It occupies a powerful position within the EAA movement, directing millions of dollars in funding each year and conducting a large fraction of the movement's research

And before I get started, I'd also like to make a couple caveats:

I think ACE does a lot of good work, and in spite of this recent behavior, I think its research does a lot to help animals. I'm also not trying to “cancel” ACE or any of its staff. But I do think the behavior outlined in this post is bad enough that ACE supporters should be vocal about their concerns and consider withholding future donations.

I am not suggesting that racism, discrimination, inequality, etc. shouldn't be discussed, or that addressing these important problems isn't EA-worthy. The EA commu...