You are absolutely right. I didn’t really explore any consequences of EA being cultish other than optics. As I said in the post, I don’t really have a good mental model of all the ways in which it plays out, but I do have a strong intuitive sense that it does have other bad consequences (honestly, this entire post is based on intuitions and anecdotal evidence—none of my claims are based on rigorous studies).
Having said that, here’s a very partial list of other consequences that I believe exist:
1. Making people with different levels of engagement with EA feel uncomfortable (you could say it’s also just optics, but I think they have good reasons to feel uncomfortable).
2. Bad epistemics, groupthink and echo chamber effects (I develop this idea a bit further here).
3. Not engaging enough with people and opinions outside EA.
4. Attracting mostly very specific types of people (again, maybe this could be labeled as optics).
5. Radical beliefs.
And just to clarify (I know that you know that, but just for the record) - I’m not saying that outreach to children is necessarily a bad idea. It has many pros and cons that should be weighed somehow. I hope that my post has been helpful in describing some potential risks.
Thank you for this comment!
You are absolutely right. I didn’t really explore any consequences of EA being cultish other than optics. As I said in the post, I don’t really have a good mental model of all the ways in which it plays out, but I do have a strong intuitive sense that it does have other bad consequences (honestly, this entire post is based on intuitions and anecdotal evidence—none of my claims are based on rigorous studies).
Having said that, here’s a very partial list of other consequences that I believe exist:
1. Making people with different levels of engagement with EA feel uncomfortable (you could say it’s also just optics, but I think they have good reasons to feel uncomfortable).
2. Bad epistemics, groupthink and echo chamber effects (I develop this idea a bit further here).
3. Not engaging enough with people and opinions outside EA.
4. Attracting mostly very specific types of people (again, maybe this could be labeled as optics).
5. Radical beliefs.
And just to clarify (I know that you know that, but just for the record) - I’m not saying that outreach to children is necessarily a bad idea. It has many pros and cons that should be weighed somehow. I hope that my post has been helpful in describing some potential risks.