On your last point, since there are now quite a lot of EAs who are parents, disproportionately senior EAs, I would think we would be well into the diminishing returns in terms of having advocates who parents with that perspective would take seriously?
I think, on the one hand, there are quite a few senior EAs who do have kids (and more every year!), and that’s good.
On the other hand, I think a lot of prominent public-facing EAs still don’t have kids, and promote ideas and values in ways that they might do a bit differently if they were parents.
For example, EA Forum, EA Global meetings, 80k Hours podcasts, etc seem to be relatively childless as a sort of ‘young EA default’. And I imagine that this public-facing EA culture could be somewhat off-putting to potential EAs who are parents.
Apart from the examples I gave above (re. alleged diminishing marginal returns to income over $35k, and long-termist transhumanism that sounds bizarre to parents), I can also imagine parents bristling at the practicality of hard-core ethical veganism (given limited control over what day cares & schools feed to their kids, limited vegan options on restaurant children’s menus, etc), or resenting the assumption (which seems common in 80k Hours advice) that all EA career decisions are being made by young single childless EAs with no geographical ties anywhere, or parents with teens worried about their education and careers feeling unhappy about AI advocates brushing aside all concerns about ‘technological unemployment’. (As a parent with a 26-year-old daughter who’s a professional artist, for example, I feel fairly pissed off at EAs who celebrate AI art replacing human artists.)
But, these are all rather vague personal impressions, and I’m open to any relevant data or other observations.
In general, I’m just making a plea that EA might be more effective at recruiting and retaining parents if existing parents in EA point out some ways that EA culture is unwittingly ignoring or marginalizing our concerns and perspectives.
I wonder if this is that we’re looking at the same numbers and seeing them differently, or whether we think the numbers are different?
If I think of the ten most well known EAs (not sharing the list because I don’t want to be ranking people), 5 are parents. Looking through Wikipedia:People_associated_with_effective_altruism I count 32 people, of which I recognize 8 as parents (and others may be). Of the top 50 posters by karma I recognize (a mostly different) [EDIT: nine] as parents, but there are a lot I don’t know the parental status of.
EA Forum, EA Global meetings, 80k Hours podcasts, etc seem to be relatively childless
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘childless’ here? I agree there aren’t many children participating in these spaces, but that’s also normal in the broader world. Do you mean that we don’t talk about children much? That it’s common for people to assume the audience doesn’t have kids?
AI advocates brushing aside all concerns about ‘technological unemployment’
I see people digging into this and comparing it to other risks, not brushing it aside. For example, here’s Holden (a parent!) making the case that by the time you get much technological unemployment you probably have much larger disruptions.
Hi Jeff—thanks for these numbers; you probably know the EA community better than I do, and have been actively engaged as an ‘EA parent’ longer than I have.
I acknowledge that a significant proportion of EAs have kids (e.g. at least 5⁄10 top 10 well-known EAs, 8⁄32 top wiki EA-associated people, 8⁄50 top EA Forum karma people). But, worldwide, it looks like about 70-80% of mature adults have kids at some point, so EAs might be on the lower end of having kids, and/or skew younger.
But, when I referred to the EA culture as seeming ‘relatively childless’, I was thinking more in terms of the culture, norms, and perspectives that shape EA values and messaging—not the relative lack of kids appearing on EA podcasts or at EA events.
I don’t expect parents in EA to talk about their kids a lot—which becomes very tedious to non-parents. Rather, I’m concerned that having kids in EA might be seen as a decision that requires some special ethical justification or career rationale or impact assessment, rather than as a normal thing that human creatures do after they sexually mature, find mates, and settle down.
Sorry if my tone came across as tendentious; it seems like we probably agree about most of this!
On your last point, since there are now quite a lot of EAs who are parents, disproportionately senior EAs, I would think we would be well into the diminishing returns in terms of having advocates who parents with that perspective would take seriously?
Hi Jeff—thanks for your comment.
I think, on the one hand, there are quite a few senior EAs who do have kids (and more every year!), and that’s good.
On the other hand, I think a lot of prominent public-facing EAs still don’t have kids, and promote ideas and values in ways that they might do a bit differently if they were parents.
For example, EA Forum, EA Global meetings, 80k Hours podcasts, etc seem to be relatively childless as a sort of ‘young EA default’. And I imagine that this public-facing EA culture could be somewhat off-putting to potential EAs who are parents.
Apart from the examples I gave above (re. alleged diminishing marginal returns to income over $35k, and long-termist transhumanism that sounds bizarre to parents), I can also imagine parents bristling at the practicality of hard-core ethical veganism (given limited control over what day cares & schools feed to their kids, limited vegan options on restaurant children’s menus, etc), or resenting the assumption (which seems common in 80k Hours advice) that all EA career decisions are being made by young single childless EAs with no geographical ties anywhere, or parents with teens worried about their education and careers feeling unhappy about AI advocates brushing aside all concerns about ‘technological unemployment’. (As a parent with a 26-year-old daughter who’s a professional artist, for example, I feel fairly pissed off at EAs who celebrate AI art replacing human artists.)
But, these are all rather vague personal impressions, and I’m open to any relevant data or other observations.
In general, I’m just making a plea that EA might be more effective at recruiting and retaining parents if existing parents in EA point out some ways that EA culture is unwittingly ignoring or marginalizing our concerns and perspectives.
I wonder if this is that we’re looking at the same numbers and seeing them differently, or whether we think the numbers are different?
If I think of the ten most well known EAs (not sharing the list because I don’t want to be ranking people), 5 are parents. Looking through Wikipedia:People_associated_with_effective_altruism I count 32 people, of which I recognize 8 as parents (and others may be). Of the top 50 posters by karma I recognize (a mostly different) [EDIT: nine] as parents, but there are a lot I don’t know the parental status of.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘childless’ here? I agree there aren’t many children participating in these spaces, but that’s also normal in the broader world. Do you mean that we don’t talk about children much? That it’s common for people to assume the audience doesn’t have kids?
I see people digging into this and comparing it to other risks, not brushing it aside. For example, here’s Holden (a parent!) making the case that by the time you get much technological unemployment you probably have much larger disruptions.
Hi Jeff—thanks for these numbers; you probably know the EA community better than I do, and have been actively engaged as an ‘EA parent’ longer than I have.
I acknowledge that a significant proportion of EAs have kids (e.g. at least 5⁄10 top 10 well-known EAs, 8⁄32 top wiki EA-associated people, 8⁄50 top EA Forum karma people). But, worldwide, it looks like about 70-80% of mature adults have kids at some point, so EAs might be on the lower end of having kids, and/or skew younger.
But, when I referred to the EA culture as seeming ‘relatively childless’, I was thinking more in terms of the culture, norms, and perspectives that shape EA values and messaging—not the relative lack of kids appearing on EA podcasts or at EA events.
I don’t expect parents in EA to talk about their kids a lot—which becomes very tedious to non-parents. Rather, I’m concerned that having kids in EA might be seen as a decision that requires some special ethical justification or career rationale or impact assessment, rather than as a normal thing that human creatures do after they sexually mature, find mates, and settle down.
Sorry if my tone came across as tendentious; it seems like we probably agree about most of this!