Preface: There is every possibility that I have misinterpreted or misread the post. Please do let me know if this is the case and I will rescind this comment.
This is an interesting post, thank you for making it. It must have taken a lot of effort, and it’s always a bold move putting culture and community related thought pieces out there because they’re often not ‘safe’ topics. Though I enjoyed many of your past posts, I don’t agree with this one for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I think the term ‘elitism’ is used too broadly in some areas. Eg. sometimes you mean it to mean cutting out people from different backgrounds, and sometimes a much broader sense. I think it would be helpful to define more clearly what you mean by it. I know you both say “Elitism in EA usually manifests as a strong preference for hiring and funding people from top universities, companies, and other institutions where social power, competence, and wealth tend to concentrate.” but that doesn’t appear to track consistently through the post.
Secondly, some points are contradictory. Eg you state:
“In these cases, elitism is beneficial because specialized competence and leadership are key to being successful in senior roles (e.g. CEOs, senior AI engineers, research leads) and these are traits highly correlated with elite environments.”
But you also state:
Elite selection (e.g. at top universities) will often select for people who have a baseline of financial stability.
This links to my first point in that it’s not clear whether you’re talking about ‘elite environments’ as people who are the best in their field being brought together, or people from supposedly ‘elite’ institutions/organisations. These quotes are from different sections, however, so perhaps I have divorced them from context here.
I see quite frequently in EA discourse that ‘elite’ universities are equated with the best talent. For a community based on rejecting assumptions, it’s quite a leap to make. I’m not saying people from those universities aren’t great (because they are), but there’s an important point to consider.
If we take two of the most ‘elite’ universities in the UK, Oxford and Cambridge, and take but a cursory look around their website we find the following:
Cambridge University
“Taught students undertaking taught Masters courses (for example, the MPhil by Advanced Study) are normally expected not to work during term-time. Students should consult their Faculty and Department for further details regarding vacation dates when they may be able to work.”
Research students undertaking a course of more than 12 months or the MPhil by Research may undertake paid work up to a maximum of ten hours per week with the approval of both their Supervisor and College Tutor. The work undertaken should be either academic-related, related to a student’s professional or career development, outreach work undertaken on behalf of the University or related to covid-19.
Oxford University
Study at Oxford is very demanding. We would strongly advise against you relying on income from employment to fund your studies as this may have an adverse effect on your ability to complete your course to your full potential.
An undergraduate degree at the University of Oxford is a full-time course. During term-time you will have very little time to take on a part-time job in addition to your studies and other activities. There are some opportunities to do a limited amount of paid work within colleges, but you should not rely on this in your budgeting
If you then Google the most expensive cities in the UK, you’ll notice some familiar names. Oxford often sits at the #1 spot, in fact.
A trend appears here—and it’s not unnoticed. Research by Cherwell found that the national average for students working part-time was 57%, with 90% of those working as many as 20 hours per week. In Oxford? Only 20% of students are employed and the majority work less than five hours per week.
So how are these funded? There are a variety of scholarships available, but some quick sums on a calculator show these don’t quite add up. Oxford is one of the UK’s most expensive cities, and even on the maximum student loan amount you’re still £2000 - £5000 short each academic year. Cherwell found that to make this up, a student would need to work 850 hours a year—which amounts to full-time for 22 weeks. Essentially, to not only excel but even participate at these universities you need savings—often from family or sponsors. I will say this, because it’s important: many students from low income families do go to these universities and manage to make it work. So if you’re reading this and this is you, don’t be mad. I’m not saying it’s impossible—I’m saying it’s an influence in creating a trend where wealth matters as much as or more than ability.
So for these reasons I would challenge this assumption that elite universities are collections of the best and brightest in the country. They’re a collection of intelligent people who also have the financial ability to go. I would go as far as to say, and I am expecting significant pushback on this, that if anything this is less valuable to draw from as on average these people will have faced fewer obstacles and gained less life experience than equally able peers from different socioeconomic brackets. You mention earlier traits like ‘leadership’ and ‘agency’, and would argue that these are traits more commonly found in those who bootstrap rather than who come from ample opportunity.
It’s entirely possible you didn’t intend ‘elite environments’ to mean this, but perhaps that could do with being cleared up. At any rate, I’ve long posed that drawing from certain universities doesn’t guarantee access to the best talent and that this elitist view robs EA of lots of potentially highly impactful talent. A look at recent history’s most transformative technologies and people doesn’t reinforce the idea that there’s a correlation between university eliteness and capacity for impact.
Again, I reiterate because people can jump to conclusions, I’m not saying elite universities don’t select from highly able people. Because they do. They have higher numbers of more able people there than anywhere else because they can select from a greater pool. I’m saying that they are not made up of the most able people.
So as far as elitism goes, by selecting for the people based on socioeconomic factors, we not only suffer from a lack of intellectual range of thought (as you rightly state in your post), but elitism becomes a self-fulfilling spiral.
Finally, though I appreciated some elements of your post, I honestly struggle to think of any genuine examples where elitism is in any way helpful either for research purposes or within EA. I would very strongly push back against that assumption. One particular part:
”financial stability is an important prerequisite to getting more involved”
I’m not sure how this could be true, unless you’re referencing socioeconomic barriers within EA—in which case removing them would be a tiny fraction of the cost than losing the amount of talent it does. A $100,000+ salary could be useful for earning to give, but in terms of actually interacting with EA and contributing to cause areas, pretty much every most impactful EA I personally know is on well under half of that.
These are just my takes, and there’s every chance people will heartily disagree with me. But that’s what makes our ideas better :) Perhaps a different word might be better—that doesn’t carry the connotations of elitism? Just an idea!
Thanks for taking the time to write this response! We really appreciate the feedback.
A couple of points:
On the first andsecondpoint, I agree that we could have been much more rigorous about the specifics of “what we mean by elitism.” We mostly mean elite institutions and organizations, which we used interchangeably with elite environments (e.g. having worked at SpaceX, or having studied at MIT).
Sometimes (maybe even often?), the best in the field won’t be from an ‘elite’ institution (e.g. Ramanujan). I agree that elite institutions =/= best talent. The claim that we’re making is that elite institutions correlate very strongly with fairly great talent depending on the situation. We mention in the post that elite selection can systematically miss very great people, especially for traits like agency or risk-aversion (entrepreneurial types).
“this is less valuable to draw from as on average these people will have faced fewer obstacles and gained less life experience than equally able peers from different socioeconomic brackets.”
I agree that equally able peers from different socioeconomic brackets could likely be better, for many of the reasons you stated. But the question is how to find these peers? If by equally able, you mean that those students attend the same institutions and the only difference is that they are from a lower socioeconomic bracket, we don’t disagree.
”You mention earlier traits like ‘leadership’ and ‘agency’” It’s hard to speak about these things without concrete numbers, and there’s no doubt that leadership is also formed in people without access to elite environments. On agency, I agree with you. We explicitly mentioned it as a trait that isn’t correlated much with elite environments.
On the last point, I’ve clarified our point and edited the original post. The claim is that people with the affordance to focus a lot of time on EA tend to skew towards people with the privilege to do so. There are certainly many dedicated EAs who haven’t come from places of privilege, and they’ve worked incredibly hard to get to where they are. I think this is awesome! I don’t want to discount any of this. But often, the foundational and basic needs need to be satisfied (e.g. financial, time, etc).
As a final note, I want to emphasize that people from non-elite institutions can, and often do amazing work. Elite institutions don’t ensure the “best” people, or even “better people”, simply a baseline of fairly competent people depending on what your situation is.
Thanks again for writing up your comment! We really want to encourage discussion around topics that are often “taboo” but important and widely present in the movement.
Preface: There is every possibility that I have misinterpreted or misread the post. Please do let me know if this is the case and I will rescind this comment.
This is an interesting post, thank you for making it. It must have taken a lot of effort, and it’s always a bold move putting culture and community related thought pieces out there because they’re often not ‘safe’ topics. Though I enjoyed many of your past posts, I don’t agree with this one for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I think the term ‘elitism’ is used too broadly in some areas. Eg. sometimes you mean it to mean cutting out people from different backgrounds, and sometimes a much broader sense. I think it would be helpful to define more clearly what you mean by it. I know you both say “Elitism in EA usually manifests as a strong preference for hiring and funding people from top universities, companies, and other institutions where social power, competence, and wealth tend to concentrate.” but that doesn’t appear to track consistently through the post.
Secondly, some points are contradictory. Eg you state:
But you also state:
This links to my first point in that it’s not clear whether you’re talking about ‘elite environments’ as people who are the best in their field being brought together, or people from supposedly ‘elite’ institutions/organisations. These quotes are from different sections, however, so perhaps I have divorced them from context here.
I see quite frequently in EA discourse that ‘elite’ universities are equated with the best talent. For a community based on rejecting assumptions, it’s quite a leap to make. I’m not saying people from those universities aren’t great (because they are), but there’s an important point to consider.
If we take two of the most ‘elite’ universities in the UK, Oxford and Cambridge, and take but a cursory look around their website we find the following:
Cambridge University
and also
Oxford University
and also
If you then Google the most expensive cities in the UK, you’ll notice some familiar names. Oxford often sits at the #1 spot, in fact.
A trend appears here—and it’s not unnoticed. Research by Cherwell found that the national average for students working part-time was 57%, with 90% of those working as many as 20 hours per week. In Oxford? Only 20% of students are employed and the majority work less than five hours per week.
So how are these funded? There are a variety of scholarships available, but some quick sums on a calculator show these don’t quite add up. Oxford is one of the UK’s most expensive cities, and even on the maximum student loan amount you’re still £2000 - £5000 short each academic year. Cherwell found that to make this up, a student would need to work 850 hours a year—which amounts to full-time for 22 weeks. Essentially, to not only excel but even participate at these universities you need savings—often from family or sponsors. I will say this, because it’s important: many students from low income families do go to these universities and manage to make it work. So if you’re reading this and this is you, don’t be mad. I’m not saying it’s impossible—I’m saying it’s an influence in creating a trend where wealth matters as much as or more than ability.
So for these reasons I would challenge this assumption that elite universities are collections of the best and brightest in the country. They’re a collection of intelligent people who also have the financial ability to go. I would go as far as to say, and I am expecting significant pushback on this, that if anything this is less valuable to draw from as on average these people will have faced fewer obstacles and gained less life experience than equally able peers from different socioeconomic brackets. You mention earlier traits like ‘leadership’ and ‘agency’, and would argue that these are traits more commonly found in those who bootstrap rather than who come from ample opportunity.
It’s entirely possible you didn’t intend ‘elite environments’ to mean this, but perhaps that could do with being cleared up. At any rate, I’ve long posed that drawing from certain universities doesn’t guarantee access to the best talent and that this elitist view robs EA of lots of potentially highly impactful talent. A look at recent history’s most transformative technologies and people doesn’t reinforce the idea that there’s a correlation between university eliteness and capacity for impact.
Again, I reiterate because people can jump to conclusions, I’m not saying elite universities don’t select from highly able people. Because they do. They have higher numbers of more able people there than anywhere else because they can select from a greater pool. I’m saying that they are not made up of the most able people.
So as far as elitism goes, by selecting for the people based on socioeconomic factors, we not only suffer from a lack of intellectual range of thought (as you rightly state in your post), but elitism becomes a self-fulfilling spiral.
Finally, though I appreciated some elements of your post, I honestly struggle to think of any genuine examples where elitism is in any way helpful either for research purposes or within EA. I would very strongly push back against that assumption. One particular part:
”financial stability is an important prerequisite to getting more involved”
I’m not sure how this could be true, unless you’re referencing socioeconomic barriers within EA—in which case removing them would be a tiny fraction of the cost than losing the amount of talent it does. A $100,000+ salary could be useful for earning to give, but in terms of actually interacting with EA and contributing to cause areas, pretty much every most impactful EA I personally know is on well under half of that.
These are just my takes, and there’s every chance people will heartily disagree with me. But that’s what makes our ideas better :) Perhaps a different word might be better—that doesn’t carry the connotations of elitism? Just an idea!
Thanks for taking the time to write this response! We really appreciate the feedback.
A couple of points:
On the first and second point, I agree that we could have been much more rigorous about the specifics of “what we mean by elitism.” We mostly mean elite institutions and organizations, which we used interchangeably with elite environments (e.g. having worked at SpaceX, or having studied at MIT).
Sometimes (maybe even often?), the best in the field won’t be from an ‘elite’ institution (e.g. Ramanujan). I agree that elite institutions =/= best talent. The claim that we’re making is that elite institutions correlate very strongly with fairly great talent depending on the situation. We mention in the post that elite selection can systematically miss very great people, especially for traits like agency or risk-aversion (entrepreneurial types).
“this is less valuable to draw from as on average these people will have faced fewer obstacles and gained less life experience than equally able peers from different socioeconomic brackets.”
I agree that equally able peers from different socioeconomic brackets could likely be better, for many of the reasons you stated. But the question is how to find these peers? If by equally able, you mean that those students attend the same institutions and the only difference is that they are from a lower socioeconomic bracket, we don’t disagree.
”You mention earlier traits like ‘leadership’ and ‘agency’”
It’s hard to speak about these things without concrete numbers, and there’s no doubt that leadership is also formed in people without access to elite environments. On agency, I agree with you. We explicitly mentioned it as a trait that isn’t correlated much with elite environments.
On the last point, I’ve clarified our point and edited the original post. The claim is that people with the affordance to focus a lot of time on EA tend to skew towards people with the privilege to do so. There are certainly many dedicated EAs who haven’t come from places of privilege, and they’ve worked incredibly hard to get to where they are. I think this is awesome! I don’t want to discount any of this. But often, the foundational and basic needs need to be satisfied (e.g. financial, time, etc).
As a final note, I want to emphasize that people from non-elite institutions can, and often do amazing work. Elite institutions don’t ensure the “best” people, or even “better people”, simply a baseline of fairly competent people depending on what your situation is.
Thanks again for writing up your comment! We really want to encourage discussion around topics that are often “taboo” but important and widely present in the movement.