This is a great point. I also think there’s a further effect, which is that older EAs were around when the current “heroes” were much-less -impressive university students or similar. Which I think leads to a much less idealising frame towards them.
But I can definitely see that if you yourself are young and you enter a movement with all these older, established, impressive people… hero-worshipping is much more tempting.
Michael—interesting point. EA is a very unusual movement in that the founders (Will MacAskill Toby Ord, etc) were very young when they launched the movement, and are still only in their mid-30s to early 40s. They got some guidance & inspiration from older philosophers (e.g. Derek Parfit, Peter Singer), but mostly they recruited people even younger than them into the movement … and then eventually some older folks like me joined as well.
So, EA’s demographics are quite youth-heavy, but there’s also much less correlation between age and prestige in EA than in most moral/activist movements.
This is a great point. I also think there’s a further effect, which is that older EAs were around when the current “heroes” were much-less -impressive university students or similar. Which I think leads to a much less idealising frame towards them.
But I can definitely see that if you yourself are young and you enter a movement with all these older, established, impressive people… hero-worshipping is much more tempting.
Michael—interesting point. EA is a very unusual movement in that the founders (Will MacAskill Toby Ord, etc) were very young when they launched the movement, and are still only in their mid-30s to early 40s. They got some guidance & inspiration from older philosophers (e.g. Derek Parfit, Peter Singer), but mostly they recruited people even younger than them into the movement … and then eventually some older folks like me joined as well.
So, EA’s demographics are quite youth-heavy, but there’s also much less correlation between age and prestige in EA than in most moral/activist movements.