This post makes me uncomfortable. I think elitism is straightforwardly pretty bad, and it should be discouraged in EA. To be clear, what I strongly object to is a preference for hiring/funding people from elite institutions. If EA orgs hire/fund people in a way that’s blind to their backgrounds and they end up hiring/funding disproportionately many people from elite institutions, that’s more complicated.
Why is elitism bad?
-I have strong emotional, not-really-utilitarian intuitions that it’s bad to not give people a fair chance because of their background
-elite institutions maybe select for competence and intelligence, but highly imperfectly—many competent/intelligent people have no association with elite institutions, and many people at elite institutions are there because of privilege or having learnt how to blag and bluff very well, rather than competence. (I’ve attended 2 elite universities, so I know this to be true, lol!) I think there are just many more things hirers/funders could do to work out who’s the best fit.
-your 2nd ‘pro’ - that financial stability is necessary for getting involved—could actually be a con in some areas. If a project has to receive funding from the community, that’s obviously more (financially) costly for the community, but the advantage is that the project has passed some quality filter—someone has decided to fund it, so it’s more likely to be good. Whereas if someone is self-funding, they might be doing something that is misguided. E.g., I know a couple of people who have got FTX grants to do projects. Without that grant, would have found it hard to quit their day job and do the project. I think (a) it’s good that they got this funding, and (b) the fact that they got the grants is a strong vote of confidence in them/their project.
To be clear, grantmaking of this kind also has flaws. I just think it would be bad if the only people heading up projects in EA were people who happened to be wealthy, either because of their family background or because they happened to have the skills/inclination to get a high-paying job.
This post makes me uncomfortable. I think elitism is straightforwardly pretty bad, and it should be discouraged in EA. To be clear, what I strongly object to is a preference for hiring/funding people from elite institutions. If EA orgs hire/fund people in a way that’s blind to their backgrounds and they end up hiring/funding disproportionately many people from elite institutions, that’s more complicated.
Why is elitism bad?
-I have strong emotional, not-really-utilitarian intuitions that it’s bad to not give people a fair chance because of their background
-elite institutions maybe select for competence and intelligence, but highly imperfectly—many competent/intelligent people have no association with elite institutions, and many people at elite institutions are there because of privilege or having learnt how to blag and bluff very well, rather than competence. (I’ve attended 2 elite universities, so I know this to be true, lol!) I think there are just many more things hirers/funders could do to work out who’s the best fit.
-your 2nd ‘pro’ - that financial stability is necessary for getting involved—could actually be a con in some areas. If a project has to receive funding from the community, that’s obviously more (financially) costly for the community, but the advantage is that the project has passed some quality filter—someone has decided to fund it, so it’s more likely to be good. Whereas if someone is self-funding, they might be doing something that is misguided. E.g., I know a couple of people who have got FTX grants to do projects. Without that grant, would have found it hard to quit their day job and do the project. I think (a) it’s good that they got this funding, and (b) the fact that they got the grants is a strong vote of confidence in them/their project.
To be clear, grantmaking of this kind also has flaws. I just think it would be bad if the only people heading up projects in EA were people who happened to be wealthy, either because of their family background or because they happened to have the skills/inclination to get a high-paying job.