I think other than the meat one, your along the lines of how some people are thinking, albeit described in a very polemical and pejorative way, that probably isnāt particularly fair. But also, a lot of these people see any obviously and transparently āeliteā group* as dodgy, not to mention that EAs tend to think like economists and donāt want to abolish capitalism which to makes them āneoliberalā to a lot of leftists (not unfairly I donāt think, though whether āneoliberalismā in this weak sense is obviously bad and evil is another matter). And as Titotal as already mentioned there are people kicking around the general EA scene with views on race that are to the right of what is acceptable even in some mainstream conservative contexts.
More generally, if you see the left/āright division as about whether we want to keep or get rid of current hierarchies, EAs are associated with things the top of current hierarchies-like big tech firms and Oxford University-and donāt seem very ashamed about it. And then when we actually think about improving the world āhow do we get rid of current hierarchiesā isnāt usually our starting question. Also, for the sort of leftists who try and explain disagreement with leftism in terms of false consciousness, there seems to be a constant temptation to see anything that isnāt explicitly about getting rid of current unjust hierarchies as a ploy to distract people from current unjust hierarchies, especially if it has billionaire backing. (Of course, many things other than EA receive money from >3 billionaires, but are not perceived as ābillionaireā backed to the same degree.)
*that isnāt humanities profs, but I would argue they arenāt really āeliteā in the same way as some EA leaders-Holden Karnofsky is married to the President of Anthropic after all, which is a hell of a lot more elite than āwent to a fancy grad school, but now teaches history at mid-ranking state uni
I think other than the meat one, your along the lines of how some people are thinking, albeit described in a very polemical and pejorative way, that probably isnāt particularly fair. But also, a lot of these people see any obviously and transparently āeliteā group* as dodgy, not to mention that EAs tend to think like economists and donāt want to abolish capitalism which to makes them āneoliberalā to a lot of leftists (not unfairly I donāt think, though whether āneoliberalismā in this weak sense is obviously bad and evil is another matter). And as Titotal as already mentioned there are people kicking around the general EA scene with views on race that are to the right of what is acceptable even in some mainstream conservative contexts.
More generally, if you see the left/āright division as about whether we want to keep or get rid of current hierarchies, EAs are associated with things the top of current hierarchies-like big tech firms and Oxford University-and donāt seem very ashamed about it. And then when we actually think about improving the world āhow do we get rid of current hierarchiesā isnāt usually our starting question. Also, for the sort of leftists who try and explain disagreement with leftism in terms of false consciousness, there seems to be a constant temptation to see anything that isnāt explicitly about getting rid of current unjust hierarchies as a ploy to distract people from current unjust hierarchies, especially if it has billionaire backing. (Of course, many things other than EA receive money from >3 billionaires, but are not perceived as ābillionaireā backed to the same degree.)
*that isnāt humanities profs, but I would argue they arenāt really āeliteā in the same way as some EA leaders-Holden Karnofsky is married to the President of Anthropic after all, which is a hell of a lot more elite than āwent to a fancy grad school, but now teaches history at mid-ranking state uni