I don’t get his point about social conservatism. Does he mean that a mass appeal socially conservative EA will be more EA somehow than a mass appeal socially liberal EA? Or that EAs should recruit social conservatives to influence more segments of the population?
In addition to the other comment, I think he’s also indirectly pointing to the demographic trends (I.e. fertility rates) of social conservatives. Social conservatives have more kids, so they inherit the future. If EA is anti natalist and socially liberal, we will lose out in the long run.
(Not sure if the above is a view stated above is your own, or one that you attribut to Tyler—in any case just adding this as a counterargument :) for anyone reading this thread and finding this topic interesting)
This is only true if you think that political values are set at an early age and remain stable throughout life—or if you commit to unrealistic ceteris paribus assumptions about the future political landscape. Furthermore, there is also evidence that these beliefs can change, for example exposure to education is linked to liberalisation of social attitudes. So, even if social conservatives have more kids, an ‘anti-natlist and socially liberal’ EA could still inherit the future as long as it manages to persuade people to support it.
In general, this sounds like a ‘Demographics are Destiny’ idea, which might be intuitively plausible but to me comes off as quite ‘hedgehog-y’. You could always find a reason why an emerging majority hasn’t arrived in a specific election and will emerge at the next one, and then the next one, and so on. I think one can maybe make broad assessments of political future given demographic trends but, as always, prediction is hard—especially about the future.
My understanding is that he basically thinks norms associated with social conservatives, in particular Mormons—he lists “savings, mutual assistance, family values and no drug and alcohol abuse” in this NYT piece -- just make people better off. He’s especially big on the teetotaling thing; he thinks alcohol abuse is a major social problem we don’t do enough to address. I don’t exactly know if he thinks it’s more important for EA’s to adopt conservative norms to improve their own welfare/productivity, or if EA’s need to see the value of conservative norms for other people generally and start promoting them.
I don’t think he’s thinking of it as giving EA more mass appeal.
I listened to the interview yesterday. My take on what he said on this was rather that EA’s core principles don’t have to necessarily restrict it to what is its de facto socially liberal, coastal, Democratic party demographic, and that socially conservative people could perfectly buy into them, if they aren’t packaged as ‘this lefty thing’.
I don’t get his point about social conservatism. Does he mean that a mass appeal socially conservative EA will be more EA somehow than a mass appeal socially liberal EA? Or that EAs should recruit social conservatives to influence more segments of the population?
In addition to the other comment, I think he’s also indirectly pointing to the demographic trends (I.e. fertility rates) of social conservatives. Social conservatives have more kids, so they inherit the future. If EA is anti natalist and socially liberal, we will lose out in the long run.
(Not sure if the above is a view stated above is your own, or one that you attribut to Tyler—in any case just adding this as a counterargument :) for anyone reading this thread and finding this topic interesting)
This is only true if you think that political values are set at an early age and remain stable throughout life—or if you commit to unrealistic ceteris paribus assumptions about the future political landscape. Furthermore, there is also evidence that these beliefs can change, for example exposure to education is linked to liberalisation of social attitudes. So, even if social conservatives have more kids, an ‘anti-natlist and socially liberal’ EA could still inherit the future as long as it manages to persuade people to support it.
In general, this sounds like a ‘Demographics are Destiny’ idea, which might be intuitively plausible but to me comes off as quite ‘hedgehog-y’. You could always find a reason why an emerging majority hasn’t arrived in a specific election and will emerge at the next one, and then the next one, and so on. I think one can maybe make broad assessments of political future given demographic trends but, as always, prediction is hard—especially about the future.
I don’t endorse that view myself, but yeah pointing out that I think Tyler believes it.
My understanding is that he basically thinks norms associated with social conservatives, in particular Mormons—he lists “savings, mutual assistance, family values and no drug and alcohol abuse” in this NYT piece -- just make people better off. He’s especially big on the teetotaling thing; he thinks alcohol abuse is a major social problem we don’t do enough to address. I don’t exactly know if he thinks it’s more important for EA’s to adopt conservative norms to improve their own welfare/productivity, or if EA’s need to see the value of conservative norms for other people generally and start promoting them.
I don’t think he’s thinking of it as giving EA more mass appeal.
I listened to the interview yesterday. My take on what he said on this was rather that EA’s core principles don’t have to necessarily restrict it to what is its de facto socially liberal, coastal, Democratic party demographic, and that socially conservative people could perfectly buy into them, if they aren’t packaged as ‘this lefty thing’.