If these results can be taken at face value, then it seems to us that rationality and altruism may be little more than necessary conditions for becoming effective altruism, and that something else is just as necessary—maybe the principle of “taking ideas seriously,” which is common on Less Wrong, or any number of other such traits.
If rationality and altruism were necessary conditions for EA outreach working well, wouldn’t you actually expect to see a reasonably strong correlation between rationality or altruism and responsiveness to EA outreach, because all individuals with low R/A have low responsiveness, whereas some individuals with high R/A have high responsiveness?
I read this as having an implicit hypothesis—that your responsiveness didn’t necessarily mean that you followed through on going through the steps to take EA related actions? And, seeing a load of rationalist people and altruistic people in EA but not many other people, we can assume that they’re necessary conditions. So, perhaps you need more than just these traits, as there’s no extra responsiveness / motivation that’s reported if you have them according to these preliminary findings. (Does that sound right?)
Which I think might be less plausible than a simpler hypothesis e.g. rational/altruistic people are more likely to execute on and deliberate over new ideas once they’ve responded / been motivated by them. Or, something like: EA movement growth has found traction in communities of rationalist people for other reasons. Unless there’s some reasoning I’m missing?
If rationality and altruism were necessary conditions for EA outreach working well, wouldn’t you actually expect to see a reasonably strong correlation between rationality or altruism and responsiveness to EA outreach, because all individuals with low R/A have low responsiveness, whereas some individuals with high R/A have high responsiveness?
I read this as having an implicit hypothesis—that your responsiveness didn’t necessarily mean that you followed through on going through the steps to take EA related actions? And, seeing a load of rationalist people and altruistic people in EA but not many other people, we can assume that they’re necessary conditions. So, perhaps you need more than just these traits, as there’s no extra responsiveness / motivation that’s reported if you have them according to these preliminary findings. (Does that sound right?)
Which I think might be less plausible than a simpler hypothesis e.g. rational/altruistic people are more likely to execute on and deliberate over new ideas once they’ve responded / been motivated by them. Or, something like: EA movement growth has found traction in communities of rationalist people for other reasons. Unless there’s some reasoning I’m missing?