I think your concerns are definitely valid. EA has very much a quantitative, numbers-focused bent to it, and that tends to attract a lot of men, which probably goes a long way towards explaining the demographics. (EA is around 70% male, according to the 2020 survey) For instance, computer science is ~80% male, and is also a very common degree path among EA’s. So you’re definitely right both that men are more common, and that there’s a strong emphasis on scientific ability and intelligence in EA.
That said, as you mentioned, one of EA’s greatest strengths is that they’re open to other ways of viewing things, so having a different view can sometimes be a good thing. It’s tough in some ways, since you might not want to follow the same path as other EA’s and it might be harder to find a niche. However, there’s diminishing returns to even highly-valuable skill sets, so having a rarer skill set is often a good thing, since less people can do what you can do.
To use some made up numbers (because EA’s love numbers :P) if EA values computer science 10x more than liberal arts, but there’s 20x more computer scientists in EA than liberal arts majors, a liberal arts skillset could be twice as valuable as a computer science one.
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I think your concerns are definitely valid. EA has very much a quantitative, numbers-focused bent to it, and that tends to attract a lot of men, which probably goes a long way towards explaining the demographics. (EA is around 70% male, according to the 2020 survey) For instance, computer science is ~80% male, and is also a very common degree path among EA’s. So you’re definitely right both that men are more common, and that there’s a strong emphasis on scientific ability and intelligence in EA.
That said, as you mentioned, one of EA’s greatest strengths is that they’re open to other ways of viewing things, so having a different view can sometimes be a good thing. It’s tough in some ways, since you might not want to follow the same path as other EA’s and it might be harder to find a niche. However, there’s diminishing returns to even highly-valuable skill sets, so having a rarer skill set is often a good thing, since less people can do what you can do.
To use some made up numbers (because EA’s love numbers :P) if EA values computer science 10x more than liberal arts, but there’s 20x more computer scientists in EA than liberal arts majors, a liberal arts skillset could be twice as valuable as a computer science one.