In what respects do we think EAs are disproportionately weird, and how problematic are they?
Being rationalist and geeky spring to mind; in extreme forms, these are offputting to some people who’d otherwise be receptive to EA, but I’m not sure that that’s true of the milder forms that are more common among EAs. Some causes are also offputtingly weird to parts of our audience.
By that definition, plausibly (though we’re even more niche than that). Being very highly educated doesn’t seem to have especially concerning costs of the sorts that Katja sketched, partly because the prospects we’re currently reaching are highly educated too. Also, perhaps needless to say, the highly educated are disproportionately high earning, and while we should be trying to reach everyone there’s a case for prioritising these people while our reach is quite small.
Highly educated can have trouble relating to the non highly educated. This is a wierdness cost that has echoes in numbers 2-6. The good news is that we can mitigate this cost fairly easily by reaching out to people on their own terms and building a broader movement. :)
In what respects do we think EAs are disproportionately weird, and how problematic are they?
Being rationalist and geeky spring to mind; in extreme forms, these are offputting to some people who’d otherwise be receptive to EA, but I’m not sure that that’s true of the milder forms that are more common among EAs. Some causes are also offputtingly weird to parts of our audience.
if by ‘weird’ we simply mean ‘unusual’, I would have thought being very highly educated is the strongest way in which EAs are weird.
By that definition, plausibly (though we’re even more niche than that). Being very highly educated doesn’t seem to have especially concerning costs of the sorts that Katja sketched, partly because the prospects we’re currently reaching are highly educated too. Also, perhaps needless to say, the highly educated are disproportionately high earning, and while we should be trying to reach everyone there’s a case for prioritising these people while our reach is quite small.
Highly educated can have trouble relating to the non highly educated. This is a wierdness cost that has echoes in numbers 2-6. The good news is that we can mitigate this cost fairly easily by reaching out to people on their own terms and building a broader movement. :)