I don’t have or know of any data (which doesn’t mean much, to be fair), but my hunch would be that rationalist people who haven’t heard of EA are, on average, probably more open to EA ideas than the average altruistic person who hasn’t heard of EA. While altruistic people might generally agree with the core ideas, they may be less likely to actually apply them to their actions.
It’s a vague claim though, and I make these assumption because of the few dozens of EAs I know personally, I’d very roughly assume 2⁄3 of them to come across as more rationalist than altruistic (if you had to choose which of the two they are), plus I’d further assume that from the general population more people will appear to be altruistic, than rationalist. If rationalists are more rare in the general population, yet more common among EAs, that would seem like evidence for them being a better match so to speak. These are all just guesses however without much to back them up, so I too would be interest in what other people think (or know).
Hmm interesting ideas. I have one disagreement though, my best guess is that there are more rationalist people than altruistic people.
I think around 50% of the people who study some quantitative/tech subject and have good IQ qualify as rationalist (is this an okay proxy for rationalist people?). And my definition for altruistic people is someone who makes career decisions primarily due to altruistic people.
Based on these definitions, I think there are more rationalist people than altruistic people. Though, this might be biased since I study at a tech college (i.e. more rationalists) and live in India (i.e. less altruistic people, presumably because people tend to become altruistic when their basic needs are met).
I don’t have or know of any data (which doesn’t mean much, to be fair), but my hunch would be that rationalist people who haven’t heard of EA are, on average, probably more open to EA ideas than the average altruistic person who hasn’t heard of EA. While altruistic people might generally agree with the core ideas, they may be less likely to actually apply them to their actions.
It’s a vague claim though, and I make these assumption because of the few dozens of EAs I know personally, I’d very roughly assume 2⁄3 of them to come across as more rationalist than altruistic (if you had to choose which of the two they are), plus I’d further assume that from the general population more people will appear to be altruistic, than rationalist. If rationalists are more rare in the general population, yet more common among EAs, that would seem like evidence for them being a better match so to speak. These are all just guesses however without much to back them up, so I too would be interest in what other people think (or know).
Hmm interesting ideas. I have one disagreement though, my best guess is that there are more rationalist people than altruistic people.
I think around 50% of the people who study some quantitative/tech subject and have good IQ qualify as rationalist (is this an okay proxy for rationalist people?). And my definition for altruistic people is someone who makes career decisions primarily due to altruistic people.
Based on these definitions, I think there are more rationalist people than altruistic people. Though, this might be biased since I study at a tech college (i.e. more rationalists) and live in India (i.e. less altruistic people, presumably because people tend to become altruistic when their basic needs are met).