A while ago I wrote a post with some thoughts on “EA for dumb people” discussions. The summary:
I think:
Intelligence is real, to a large degree determined by genes and an important driver (though not the only one) of how much good one can do.
That means some people are by nature better positioned to do good. This is unfair, but it is what it is.
Somewhere there’s a trade-off between getting more people into a community, and keeping a high average level of ability in the community, in other words to do with selectivity. The optimal solution is neither to allow no one in nor to allow everyone in, but somewhere in between.
Being welcoming and accommodating can allow you to get more impact with a more permissive threshold, but you still need to set the threshold somewhere.
I think effective altruism today is far away from hitting any diminishing returns on new recruits.
Ultimately what matters for the effective altruist community is that good is done, not who exactly does it.
The optimal solution is neither to allow no one in nor to allow everyone in, but somewhere in between.
I feel somewhat icky about the framing of “allowing people into EA”. I celebrate everyone who shares the value of improving the lives of others, and who wants to do this most effectively. I don’t like the idea that some people will be not allowed to be part of this community, especially since EA is currently the only community like it. I see the tradeoff more in who we’re advertising towards and what type of activities we’re focussing on as a community, e.g. things that better reflect what is most useful, like cultivating intellectual rigor and effective execution of useful projects.
So I think “(not) allowing X in” was not particularly well worded; what I meant was something like “making choices that cause X (not) to join”. So that includes stuff like this:
I see the tradeoff more in who we’re advertising towards and what type of activities we’re focussing on as a community, e.g. things that better reflect what is most useful, like cultivating intellectual rigor and effective execution of useful projects.
And to be clear, I’m talking about EA as a community / shared project. I think it’s perfectly possible and fine to have an EA mindset / do good by EA standards without being a member of the community.
That said, I do think there are some rare situations where you would not allow some people to be part of the community, e.g. I don’t think Gleb Tsipursky should be a member today.
A while ago I wrote a post with some thoughts on “EA for dumb people” discussions. The summary:
I feel somewhat icky about the framing of “allowing people into EA”. I celebrate everyone who shares the value of improving the lives of others, and who wants to do this most effectively. I don’t like the idea that some people will be not allowed to be part of this community, especially since EA is currently the only community like it. I see the tradeoff more in who we’re advertising towards and what type of activities we’re focussing on as a community, e.g. things that better reflect what is most useful, like cultivating intellectual rigor and effective execution of useful projects.
So I think “(not) allowing X in” was not particularly well worded; what I meant was something like “making choices that cause X (not) to join”. So that includes stuff like this:
And to be clear, I’m talking about EA as a community / shared project. I think it’s perfectly possible and fine to have an EA mindset / do good by EA standards without being a member of the community.
That said, I do think there are some rare situations where you would not allow some people to be part of the community, e.g. I don’t think Gleb Tsipursky should be a member today.