Good day everyone.
First of all I would like to thank my... expressing
my appreciation for the invitation to attend
this EA Global.
It's my second event and it's really been
great to see the growth of this movement,
and the sort of kind of people that it brings
together.
I'm really happy and honored and privileged
to be addressing you here today.
However I think I'm afraid I have to start
with sort of a, not an apology but at least
a confession of sorts, maybe even two.
The first one is that the title of my presentation
is a ruse.
It's a ploy.
I'm not going to give you tips or hands-on
advice on how to be amazingly effective in
the world of policy making.
I think it's probably contraspecific anyway,
and I'm happy to discuss it in the Q&A and
during my office hour in half an hour after
my talk.
But it's a ruse for a good purpose.
I have a bigger fish to fry and I hope and
almost semi-promise that I will get to the
point that you probably were expecting, at
the very end of my talk.
The second confession is this: it's not aspirational,
like I have a dream.
It's more bit of a letdown like I used to
believe, but I think it's still powerful and
important and something that deserves our
consideration.
Because what I used to believe is that we
can bypass the problems of state-centric governance
and devise working solutions to the pressing
problems of our age, including that of the
future.
I was an optimist for quite some time.
I thought that, and I think I was seeing through
my own scholarship and reading a lot of literature,
that the power was diffusing.
It was going away from the states and the
formal, old structures.
But it wasn't clearly going necessarily anywhere.
At least at first.
It gave me this hope that we could sort of
build different forms of new regulation, spontaneous
orders, and social movements like effective
altruism.
To generate order.
To generate the positive outcomes that we
need.
For me, for quite some time, the world seemed
awash with feasible alternatives.
But unfortunately I do not fully believe this
to be the case anymore.
The reason is that the change we need and
so desperately require, it simply doesn't
come fast enough.
We see the paralysis of existing forms of
governance to a certain extent, and I will
say a few words about that, but we are not
seeing massively and sufficiently effective
forms of new governance coming instead.
The clock is, unfortunately, ticking.
Yet quitting is not an option.
The stakes are simply too high.
We have been talking about these new issues,
new problems, new forms of threats, x-risks,
catastrophic risks.
We have been talking about climate change
and so on and so forth.
These are all things that desperately require
our attention and creative working solutions.
Actually what I... the sort of the conclusion
that I have drawn from all of this, past five
years working for the government and witnessing
international cooperation firsthand and the
attempts, however feeble and at times fallible
in terms of developing international governance,
is that we actually have a massive amount
of existing structures and mechanisms and
things in place that we need to put to a much
better place.
So basically even though I used to believe
something that was aspirational and I think
is still worth our consideration, and working
towards, I'm more convinced, at least for
the time being, that we actually also have
to steer some of our energies into getting
things done here and now, using the mechanisms
and levers we already have in place.
This means engaging many of the structures
that perhaps you, through your own work, feel
a certain level of aversion or distrust towards.
What I want to try to do here today is to
make a case and argue that perhaps some of
these things deserve a second thought, and
more importantly deserve the kind of inputs
that only people like you can give into these
mechanisms and these forms of cooperation.
What ails us then?
What is the problem and what is the issue
that is bringing us down and keeping us from
achieving the kind of results that we so badly
need?
Well this is the bit of good news that I have.
Leaders that I have met and I have had...
I have actually met quite a few during my
career, are on average both intelligent and
ethically high level.
Not all of them, without naming any names,
absolutely not naming any names, but intelligent
and ethically high level.
I'm fully convinced that they genuinely want
to make the world a better place.
This is the feeling that I've gotten from
watching leaders in action, from basically
all corners of the earth.
This is one thing that clearly is common to
all of these things.
These kind of basic capabilities and aspirations
are actually the ones that have motivated
them into entering the game of politics, and
to become policymakers or even political leaders.
Yet they keep making decisions that are detrimental
to our long-term well-being.
This is a clear paradox.
Why are we not getting the kind of results
that we would like to have, and need to have,
even though, on principle at least, the people
are of the right caliber and quality, and
have the sort of best interests of their nations
but also of humanity at their heart?
Well, this is a 20 minute talk.
What I'm going to go through next is a seminar
series lasting for six months, but I'll try
to give a quick run through some of the problems
of our, in particular, western liberal democracies.
These leaders are, to a large degree, constrained
by vested interests.
There are all kinds of interest groups, industries,
trade unions.
All kinds of peoples with specific needs,
and there's vested interests that are working
very hard and at cross purposes, to retain
or enhance these very sectoral specific interests.
By doing so they in fact create policy paralysis,
incompatible agendas, and create very difficult
situations for political leaders, who in the
final analysis are always looking for re-election,
which is another factor that challenges this
system.
This results in short-termism, overall erosion
of our democratic systems, which is visible
in many of our countries of today.
We are living in a world that equates leadership
with populism, where leaders are basically
at times putting out... or most of the time
putting out their antennae looking at, and
trying to listen to the signals from the electorate.
What they want, what are these sort of vested
special interests that they should cater to?
Instead of providing us with long-term thinking
and solutions.
This is compounded with information overload,
which I can testify as a former civil servant
is massive in terms of the policy making circles,
that further often encourages presentist thinking
and easy and/or quick solutions.
This is really a big round of problems facing
anyone who is interested into making a positive
difference in the world of policy making.
This is something that anyone working in this
world will encounter, one way or another.
On top of this there's another, an additional
factor which I think is very important, and
which should force us to perhaps reconsider
our own position concerning politics and our
political systems.
I think we as citizens are letting our politicians
and political systems down.
We are expecting less and less.
We are demanding less and less in terms of
good outcomes from these systems, and as a
consequence we are getting less and less of
good outcomes from these systems.
This erosion of trust in our institutions,
to a degree is richly deserved, but at the
same time becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy
that is eroding our capacity for national
decision making, national politics, and also
sensible international politics at the same
time.
So this is an area of diminishing returns
that we have entered into, which is feeding
back into this further disillusionment on
the part of the population, and also feeding
into populist politics which seems to be offering
easy sound bites and easy victories for people
who are fed up with the business as usual.
I will get back to this notion of business
as usual in a little while.
So what I'm advocating here today is that
politics and policy making actually would
benefit from interaction and from more participation
from individuals like effective altruists.
I will make the case in the very final slide
why I think this is so, although I'm quite
sure that this is not the message that most
of you necessarily are very happy or excited
about.
But you don't have to go all the way in order
to make a difference.
You can devise different strategies of how
to go about making or effecting change in
existing policies, if you are interested in
affecting this political game and this making
of policies on the national or international
level.
The first strategy I call mix with the animals,
and you can think who these animals might
be.
I think the world is full of opportunities
for a person who is interested in effecting
change from within the system.
In this respect there are good news, because
leaders that I've been describing are always
on the lookout for the next big idea.
They are sort of intellectually curious, they
are looking for solutions to pre-existing
problems.
They are also looking for new framings of
problems and issues and solutions that they
are not aware of.
So this actually opens up a pretty lucrative
and promising market for knowledgeable and
talented individuals to become and act as
advisors or external consultants to governments.
This is a position that I have been over my
career and I have found it fruitful and rewarding,
and I'm happy to share my experiences later
on, perhaps during the office hour.
How to go about providing and offering these
services, and what is entailed and included
in these kind of things.
But it is not the only way how to go about
these things.
Another important facet, or group of individuals
in policy making that are not policy decision
makers per se is the role of civil servants,
who play at times a key role in planning and
executing policies.
There is also the opportunity of becoming
one yourself.
Think about entering bureaucracies through
whatever the national processes might be,
or international bureaucracies, there are
a lot of those as well, that develop a lot
of policy responses that have a forward-oriented
leaning in their work.
Which will give you a lot of opportunities
to also produce policy outcomes that you are
interested in.
But this is an important point and a caveat.
But please be aware that if you play this
kind of mix with the animals strategy, you
are always acting in a subservient role to
power.
This always has its own limits.
Because in the final analysis, the major change
we need and the major decisions that will
be taken, will not be taken by bureaucrats
or advisors or consultants, but they are actually
taken by politicians, elected officials, and
so on so forth.
The leaders who in the final analysis weigh
in the different options, different opportunities,
and different costs.
Therefore even though I think this strategy
number one, and it is the one that I have
played myself for probably very good reasons.
I think I would be an awful politician to
be honest.
I can even answer that question later on in
the day and perhaps in the evening.
But I've also come to see the limits of these
kind of roles through exercising that kind
of power, even at a fairly senior level that
I have been working during my own career.
This question of seniority is indeed a worthy
consideration for young experts and young
professionals such as you are, because I think
the bad news in following this route is this
one: 80,000 hours is a very long time.
Climbing the greasy pole of becoming a very
effective and very senior civil servant advisor
and so on so forth, in most cases probably
takes a very long time.
This would seem to dictate against the question
of time, which I was referring to earlier
on.
So thinking that we could somehow make the
radical change we require take place through
this route alone is probably not correct thinking,
because we most probably will not have the
time to make sure that we have all the right
and sensible people in all the right and crucial
positions to start making and effecting the
change that we need.
So although I think this is a worthy route
to follow, it is very important and probably
very impactful in many respects, it is probably
not sufficient in terms of achieving the kind
of change that we need.
Which has led me to thinking about this.
I would be happy to hear your views about
what you make about this one.
So the starting point is basically what I
have already been saying.
It's that the change we need is unlikely to
materialize from within the current political
structures and the modus operandi.
Be it our national political systems or the
systems of international governance.
I have alluded to the problems already, previously.
To my mind the imperative thing that needs
to change is our very political culture.
Less short-term thinking, more long-term thinking.
Less egotistical values and even sort of nationalists,
narrow-minded thinking, more cosmopolitan
thinking, more appreciating and accepting
the fact that we are increasingly starting
to operate on the level of humanity with our
policies and our effects and our unintended
consequences without actually having the political
institutions necessary to deal with many of
these issues for the moment.
Probably not fully being able to build those
institutions, at least very quickly or uncontroversially.
So we need a change in our political culture
and I think it is a change that can only come
from the bottom up because this other system,
this existing political culture and our existing
political leaders will most probably not be
able to deliver on this kind of change.
The good news is that to my mind the world,
or at least significant parts of it, are ready
for quick political changes.
We have seen this for better or for ill.
We saw the rapid rise of Mr. Trump from basically
from an unelectable candidate to the President
of the United States of America, who has been
able to take over also the Republican Party.
I'm not saying this is a particularly positive
or happy example necessarily, but it is an
example how quick political changes are possible
in even massively big and well stratified
political systems such as the United States.
Another probably more hopeful and positive
example is the President of France, Macron,
who came from similar obscurity very quickly,
creating a political platform and sweeping
the whole French political system in the process.
So I think the potential is there.
People are fed up with the business as usual,
they are looking for alternatives.
My concern is that right now many of these
alternatives are not coming from a particularly
happy or optimistic place.
It is coming from xenophobic, populist, narrow-minded
circles in many places who want to turn the
clock back at exactly the time when we need
new thinking, new forms of cooperation, new
forms of governance.
So not only are they potentially squandering
our ability to move forward, they are actually
aggressively and very determinedly trying
to turn the clock back into the yesteryear.
This is clearly something that we simply cannot
afford.
So what we need is people, new ideas, new
movements, that can steer these energies that
are there into a direction that is conducive
to positive changes in the world.
That can articulate aspirational and positive
visions that people will want to flock to,
vote for, and work for, in order to achieve
the change that we need.
I simply cannot think of many more positive
signposts to humanity than the EA movement.
I mean your principles, your thinking, I think
is exactly the recipe for the day.
This is something that we all, I think, interested
in the future well-being of humanity and human
beings and the life on this planet, will have
to work very hard to project and to make it
grow, and to get new followers, and to make
it an actionable program in our lives and
in our political systems.
So I'm at the end of my time, so it's probably
worth clarifying what I'm not proposing here
today.
I'm not proposing turning effective altruism
into a political movement.
I think you are perfect the way you are, and
I do not say that you should change in this
way and take that kind of route.
But I think this is a piece of particularly
wonderful and exciting software.
We have a very robust and very powerful and
effective piece of hardware, which is our
states, our national bureaucracies, our forms
of international governance and so on so forth.
So what I would like to see and what I think
needs to take place is that this particular
piece of software is inserted into this particular
piece of hardware.
I don't see any a priori mismatch or incompatibility
here.
No need for hostility or aversion between
these two worlds.
On the contrary, I think this particular piece
of hardware would benefit immensely from interacting
much more with the software that you have
to offer.
So in order to answer my question how to be
more effective in the world of policy making,
is that I think some effective altruists,
or at least some people leaning into this
particular intellectual direction, would have
to become politicians, and political leaders,
and I think this is called for.
So I thank you for your patience, and this
invitation.
Thank you.
