Effective altruism, more than stemming a tide of anti-intellectualism, or being neutral, seems super pro-intellectual to me. That is, to me the dominant culture seems to be one which a cross between a sort of Transatlantic upright-ness of universities like the Ivies and Oxbridge, and what in North America is called “nerd culture”. This seems to be a first filter for persons to find amenable atttiudes eithin effective altruism, arguments for how to do good aside.
Hypothesis: a lack of diversity along other dimensions in effective altruism is filtered by an intellectualist mindset. Thus, for what diversity remains among effective altruism, we should expect to see across demographics a disposition, temperament, or set of experiences the same when adjusting for sex, class, ethnicity, or country of origin.
This could explain why effective altruism is disproportionately college-educated. Also, a lack of diversity may be due to middle-class white men dominating the culture that feeds effective altruism from a culture which is mostly that demographic anyway. This is seen in how effective altruism gains much of its population from CS, maths, econ, and philosphy majors. However, this is confounded by how EA was designed and spread from within that culture anyway, so there could be implicit biases in how we end up communicating EA anyway.
Unfortunately, this hypothesis isn’t practical to test, seems prone to biases like confirmation bias and demand characteristics and the availability and representativeness heuristics. If we accounted for those, collecting data on this would likely end up being done in an insensitive and uncontrolled way resulting in anecdotes we couldn’t reliably correlate with anything. I don’t know if it’s testable using the EA survey, which is the only thing which might do it.
The other part of my theory is effective altruism is offputting to altruistic subcultures or communities which are less neutral, indifferent or averse to politicization. Effective altruism isn’t averse to such, per se, and I don’t think it’s got a pervasive culture of political correctness. Rather, when more partisan persons enter the space, they’re not expecting a relatively unrelenting scrutiny effective altruism brings. Thus, offput by having preconceived notions unexpectedly challenged, both right-wing and left-wing persons self-select for exclusion from effective altruism, as it also is unsympathetic to predetermined cause prioritization not already favored by at least a vocal minority of sensible effective altruists. For example, animal advocacy might be the smallest major cause in effective altruism, but it’s not excluded because so many animal advocates yield to calls for demonstrated or increased effectiveness in their actions. This doesn’t seem the case for other causes which have tried to gain a toehold in effective altruism. Effective altruism may also be offputting for tolerating a diverse range of perspectives so long as the proponents in question are making efforts to behave in a way considered reasonable and polite. Depending on one’s principles, standing aside a community which accepts perspectives opposite to one’s own may be a dealbreaker. This principle of charity is one i wish to remain intact within effective altruism, but iI believe there needs be a greater awareness of persons who pay lip service or demonstrate adherence to community norms in their surface behavior but really are disrespectful to other effective altruists they disagree with when they get away with it. I think there needs to be a constant vigilance each of us holds others as well as ourselves to in addition to an indiscriminate intellectual empathy. I believe this is more important for effective altruism than it is for the rationalist community.
Finally, I agree with Robin Hanson effective altruism needs more grit. That’s a virtue which can enhance effective altruism’s ability to survive external and internal conflict. For several months, I’ve observes pessimism among others about the capacity of effective altruism to survive conflict. Observing other movements, like environmentalism and economic justice, I’ve noticed each is fraught with greater turbulence than effective altruism in terms of the quality and quantity of their disagreements leading to debates. By and large though these and other movements realize great gains without collapsing. I believe pessimism towards the future solidarity and value of a united effective altruism is both unhelpful and unrealistic l.
Effective altruism, more than stemming a tide of anti-intellectualism, or being neutral, seems super pro-intellectual to me. That is, to me the dominant culture seems to be one which a cross between a sort of Transatlantic upright-ness of universities like the Ivies and Oxbridge, and what in North America is called “nerd culture”. This seems to be a first filter for persons to find amenable atttiudes eithin effective altruism, arguments for how to do good aside.
Hypothesis: a lack of diversity along other dimensions in effective altruism is filtered by an intellectualist mindset. Thus, for what diversity remains among effective altruism, we should expect to see across demographics a disposition, temperament, or set of experiences the same when adjusting for sex, class, ethnicity, or country of origin.
This could explain why effective altruism is disproportionately college-educated. Also, a lack of diversity may be due to middle-class white men dominating the culture that feeds effective altruism from a culture which is mostly that demographic anyway. This is seen in how effective altruism gains much of its population from CS, maths, econ, and philosphy majors. However, this is confounded by how EA was designed and spread from within that culture anyway, so there could be implicit biases in how we end up communicating EA anyway.
Unfortunately, this hypothesis isn’t practical to test, seems prone to biases like confirmation bias and demand characteristics and the availability and representativeness heuristics. If we accounted for those, collecting data on this would likely end up being done in an insensitive and uncontrolled way resulting in anecdotes we couldn’t reliably correlate with anything. I don’t know if it’s testable using the EA survey, which is the only thing which might do it.
The other part of my theory is effective altruism is offputting to altruistic subcultures or communities which are less neutral, indifferent or averse to politicization. Effective altruism isn’t averse to such, per se, and I don’t think it’s got a pervasive culture of political correctness. Rather, when more partisan persons enter the space, they’re not expecting a relatively unrelenting scrutiny effective altruism brings. Thus, offput by having preconceived notions unexpectedly challenged, both right-wing and left-wing persons self-select for exclusion from effective altruism, as it also is unsympathetic to predetermined cause prioritization not already favored by at least a vocal minority of sensible effective altruists. For example, animal advocacy might be the smallest major cause in effective altruism, but it’s not excluded because so many animal advocates yield to calls for demonstrated or increased effectiveness in their actions. This doesn’t seem the case for other causes which have tried to gain a toehold in effective altruism. Effective altruism may also be offputting for tolerating a diverse range of perspectives so long as the proponents in question are making efforts to behave in a way considered reasonable and polite. Depending on one’s principles, standing aside a community which accepts perspectives opposite to one’s own may be a dealbreaker. This principle of charity is one i wish to remain intact within effective altruism, but iI believe there needs be a greater awareness of persons who pay lip service or demonstrate adherence to community norms in their surface behavior but really are disrespectful to other effective altruists they disagree with when they get away with it. I think there needs to be a constant vigilance each of us holds others as well as ourselves to in addition to an indiscriminate intellectual empathy. I believe this is more important for effective altruism than it is for the rationalist community.
Finally, I agree with Robin Hanson effective altruism needs more grit. That’s a virtue which can enhance effective altruism’s ability to survive external and internal conflict. For several months, I’ve observes pessimism among others about the capacity of effective altruism to survive conflict. Observing other movements, like environmentalism and economic justice, I’ve noticed each is fraught with greater turbulence than effective altruism in terms of the quality and quantity of their disagreements leading to debates. By and large though these and other movements realize great gains without collapsing. I believe pessimism towards the future solidarity and value of a united effective altruism is both unhelpful and unrealistic l.