Yeah, because I believe in EA and not in the socialist revolution, I must believe that EA could win some objective contest of ideas over socialism. In the particular contest of EA → socialist vs socialist → EA conversions I do think EA would win since it’s had a higher growth rate in the period both existed, though someone would have to check how many EA deconverts from the FTX scandal became socialists. This would be from both signal and noise factors; here’s my wild guess at the most important factors:
Convinced EAs have been exposed to the “root cause” objection already, whereas convinced socialists may not have heard the “analytical Marxism project failed” or “Individual variation undermines class-based politics” objections: Mostly noise, but some signal because EA’s focus on criticism is good epistemic health
EA has a better track record (so people who think about their respective track records are on net likely to convert to EA): Signal inasmuch as you think this is true, but it’s not clear they’re comparable
Socialists might not be numerate enough to trust the arguments that some interventions are much better than others: opposite direction
There are fewer EAs than socialists: unclear
… so most people hear more socialist ideas and might favor EA when they’re put on an equal playing field: signal
… so EAs are selected more strongly than socialists for tendency to believe: noise
But I think someone would actually need to do that experiment or at least gather the data
even that’s overselling it, if an EA got convinced of socialism they’d just continue being EAs while also having a different theory of political organization from whatever they had before, because neither of these ideologies involve commitments that preclude the other.
Yes, nothing in this post seems less likely than an EA trying to convince socialists to become EAs and subsequently being convinced of socialism.
Yeah, because I believe in EA and not in the socialist revolution, I must believe that EA could win some objective contest of ideas over socialism. In the particular contest of EA → socialist vs socialist → EA conversions I do think EA would win since it’s had a higher growth rate in the period both existed, though someone would have to check how many EA deconverts from the FTX scandal became socialists. This would be from both signal and noise factors; here’s my wild guess at the most important factors:
Convinced EAs have been exposed to the “root cause” objection already, whereas convinced socialists may not have heard the “analytical Marxism project failed” or “Individual variation undermines class-based politics” objections: Mostly noise, but some signal because EA’s focus on criticism is good epistemic health
EA has a better track record (so people who think about their respective track records are on net likely to convert to EA): Signal inasmuch as you think this is true, but it’s not clear they’re comparable
Socialists might not be numerate enough to trust the arguments that some interventions are much better than others: opposite direction
There are fewer EAs than socialists: unclear
… so most people hear more socialist ideas and might favor EA when they’re put on an equal playing field: signal
… so EAs are selected more strongly than socialists for tendency to believe: noise
But I think someone would actually need to do that experiment or at least gather the data
even that’s overselling it, if an EA got convinced of socialism they’d just continue being EAs while also having a different theory of political organization from whatever they had before, because neither of these ideologies involve commitments that preclude the other.