As you can see, that’s a huge overrepresentation from elite universities. Over 1⁄3 of respondents come from Oxbridge or T20 universities. The top-heaviness is even wilder if you dig into EA’s funding sources. By 80k’s own estimates, 80% of EA’s funding essentially comes from the work of Dustin Moskovitz from Harvard and Sam Bankman-Fried from MIT.[1]
There’s arguably some justification for this:
Impact has a top-heavy distribution. I forget which post I saw, but the basic premise was that in the same way EA charities can be 1,000 times more impactful than the average charity, the work of a few influential EAs can be 1,000 times more impactful than the average EA. Some examples cited were AI research and policy. Personally, I agree. Do I want to think of myself as a temporarily embarrassed billionaire philanthropist? Sure. But realistically, why the hell would I have a problem with someone doing a lot of good? Go nuts.
On the wealth front, you could argue that’s just a reflection of existing systemic inequality. Global and societal wealth is largely concentrated in the top 10% or top 1%, and any nonprofit seeking funds would essentially mirror that distribution. And in any case, unless EA prioritises wealth redistribution as a nonnegotiable movement goal/cause area, isn’t it a good thing that there are billionaires using their wealth, privilege and influence to fund solutions instead of demanding normal people donate? I try to donate, but I’m thankful the movement doesn’t have to live or die based on whether a thousand EAs buy slightly more expensive ergonomic chairs or nice meals every Friday.
However, I think the argument for diversity remains compelling:
In terms of neglectedness, this early in the movement, it’s just logical to reach out to underrepresented demographics. A worldwide movement of a few thousand people should be evolving and adapting, and the 99% of institutions that are underrepresented present a compelling case. If this were a cause area exploration, it would be really weird to settle for engaging the top 1% just because they responded first.
EA is ultimately about using evidence and reason to do the most good. Compared to other goals like making a lot of money, this goal benefits from diversity of perspective. If EA wants to solve humanity’s problems, you’d think it would be beneficial to have more perspectives that are closer to explored cause areas, or perspectives that can make a case for a currently-neglected cause area.
Overall, I agree. And for certain EAs reading this who remain unconvinced, I doubt EA would have grown to what it is today if Will Macaskill had decided that American EAs weren’t worth the trouble of reaching out to, or that certain initially-unpopular cause areas weren’t worth acknowledging.
Yes, I know FTX has a very EA-aligned team and is not just SBF. However, if you attempt to break down the actual alma maters of the FTX leadership, you’ll find it only strengthens my point.
As someone who’s been to a <5% acceptance rate school and a school that no one outside my city knows exists, I agree with this assessment.
To ground this discussion, I’ll be using stats from the 2020 EA demographics survey.
Specifically, this chart of EA’s alma maters.
As you can see, that’s a huge overrepresentation from elite universities. Over 1⁄3 of respondents come from Oxbridge or T20 universities. The top-heaviness is even wilder if you dig into EA’s funding sources. By 80k’s own estimates, 80% of EA’s funding essentially comes from the work of Dustin Moskovitz from Harvard and Sam Bankman-Fried from MIT.[1]
There’s arguably some justification for this:
Impact has a top-heavy distribution. I forget which post I saw, but the basic premise was that in the same way EA charities can be 1,000 times more impactful than the average charity, the work of a few influential EAs can be 1,000 times more impactful than the average EA. Some examples cited were AI research and policy. Personally, I agree. Do I want to think of myself as a temporarily embarrassed billionaire philanthropist? Sure. But realistically, why the hell would I have a problem with someone doing a lot of good? Go nuts.
On the wealth front, you could argue that’s just a reflection of existing systemic inequality. Global and societal wealth is largely concentrated in the top 10% or top 1%, and any nonprofit seeking funds would essentially mirror that distribution. And in any case, unless EA prioritises wealth redistribution as a nonnegotiable movement goal/cause area, isn’t it a good thing that there are billionaires using their wealth, privilege and influence to fund solutions instead of demanding normal people donate? I try to donate, but I’m thankful the movement doesn’t have to live or die based on whether a thousand EAs buy slightly more expensive ergonomic chairs or nice meals every Friday.
However, I think the argument for diversity remains compelling:
In terms of neglectedness, this early in the movement, it’s just logical to reach out to underrepresented demographics. A worldwide movement of a few thousand people should be evolving and adapting, and the 99% of institutions that are underrepresented present a compelling case. If this were a cause area exploration, it would be really weird to settle for engaging the top 1% just because they responded first.
EA is ultimately about using evidence and reason to do the most good. Compared to other goals like making a lot of money, this goal benefits from diversity of perspective. If EA wants to solve humanity’s problems, you’d think it would be beneficial to have more perspectives that are closer to explored cause areas, or perspectives that can make a case for a currently-neglected cause area.
Overall, I agree. And for certain EAs reading this who remain unconvinced, I doubt EA would have grown to what it is today if Will Macaskill had decided that American EAs weren’t worth the trouble of reaching out to, or that certain initially-unpopular cause areas weren’t worth acknowledging.
Yes, I know FTX has a very EA-aligned team and is not just SBF. However, if you attempt to break down the actual alma maters of the FTX leadership, you’ll find it only strengthens my point.