I’m pretty sure I’ve said something like that myself ;) However I don’t think that’s contradictory. Rather, I think there are 3 categories of people:
People who were sold on the ideas and often taking the actions before hearing about EA.
People who when they hear about EA are quite sceptical.
People who when they hear about EA have a more positive reaction than that.
What I’ve meant is that barely any people in the 2nd category end up as EAs. I base that partly on the fact that I don’t know of any such people (having asked others if they do, and knowing quite a few EAs myself). So the sentence you quoted was about the 3rd category of people.
I do think that the 1st category is larger than the 3rd based on the people I know about, which does reduce this aspect of the value of the project. However plausibly some of these people wouldn’t otherwise have found equally effective charities.
I’m pretty sure I’ve said something like that myself ;) However I don’t think that’s contradictory. Rather, I think there are 3 categories of people:
People who were sold on the ideas and often taking the actions before hearing about EA.
People who when they hear about EA are quite sceptical.
People who when they hear about EA have a more positive reaction than that.
What I’ve meant is that barely any people in the 2nd category end up as EAs. I base that partly on the fact that I don’t know of any such people (having asked others if they do, and knowing quite a few EAs myself). So the sentence you quoted was about the 3rd category of people.
I do think that the 1st category is larger than the 3rd based on the people I know about, which does reduce this aspect of the value of the project. However plausibly some of these people wouldn’t otherwise have found equally effective charities.