Updates
Dec 22, 2023 (Link updated February 2024)
I created a Slack workspace!
Here’s the invite link: EA Left/Progressive Wing Slack (name not final)
Notes
Seems like a Facebook group could be created for specific topics in left-wing thought (like economics and forms of government)
Garrison Lovely’s podcast comes to mind as a starting point on overlap and disagreements between the two communities: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6NnnPvzCzxWpWzAb8/podcast-the-left-and-effective-altruism-with-habiba-islam
Idk of any online communities explicitly focused on this intersection, but would be interested in participating in one! Facebook groups historically have been good for this sort of thing (especially bc of the mod approval questions you could include), but I’ve basically stopped using FB entirely, as have lots of others I know. A Slack channel within the larger EA Slack may work (eagreconnect.slack.com), but I just experimented with this and there doesn’t seem to be a native feature like the FB mod approval questions. You could have channel admins that add people manually, but that seems work-intensive.
One problem I can envision is that people may be wary of having candid conversations in public-ish spaces because of the possibility of journalists or others quoting them now that EA is more high profile.
One thing I will note is that there are way more leftist EAs than is commonly assumed. As one of the more public ones, I have a biased sample I’m sure (people will reach out to me). But one anecdote: at the last EAG Bay Area, I was sitting at a random table of ~6 other people in the main food area and 4 of them were leftists.
Thank you for sharing! I wrote to Garrison, to see if they know of any such community.
There is a Facebook group on EA + diversity and inclusion: https://www.facebook.com/groups/diversityEA
I’ve sometimes been interested in making a group on EA+ ‘economic left’ thought (socialism, anarchism, anti-capitalism and such) - I’ll let you know if I ever do!
If you ever end up making such a group, I’d love to be notified. :)
Kindly notify me if you eventually make such a group
Hi Amber! That intersection is one I’m interested in. I’m writing to a few people to see if they already know of a community I join, and I will be updating the post and letting anyone interested know so they can join.
There are also Facebook groups for people with specific marginalised identities, which might also have some of that sort of content: e.g. there is one for LGBTQ people, and one for women and non-binary people. There may also be groups related to other identities: there are a bunch of “EA+X” related groups on FB so I’d say search there
I don’t have the answer, but I’m eager to join the discussion, especially on whether it’s possible to implement the principle of real impartiality in national politics. Our left-wing parties (speaking about Poland), no matter how progressive, never go so far as to include in their main programmatic demands regarding people with no connection to Poland (unless they at least fall into the category of EU migrants). Perhaps it is logically impossible for it to be otherwise. However, if it’s any weaker kind of impossibility, it would be good to explore the area.
There used to be discord group with a lot of left wing EAs but it has since fizzled. https://discord.com/invite/vbXEkDwa
Let me know if you get a new group up and running.
Update for Dec 22, 2023
I created a Slack workspace!
Here’s the invite link: EA Left/Progressive Wing Slack (name not final)
I guess there’s a difference between EAs calling themselves ‘center-left’ and that apparently make 80% of EA according to Rethink Priorities surveys, which are probably EAs broadly open to ideas such as passively giving rights to minorities and encouraging a market economy that does a bit of redistribution,
and those who call actively themselves ’leftists, who are in favor of structural change, breaking down patriarchy and are feminists, loath wealth-hoarding and tend to be extremely skeptical towards extreme rationalists who have no qualms discussing abortion without mentioning women’s rights.
I reckon the second kind will be much harder to find, but they exist!
Roughly 80% (76.6%) consider themselves left or center left, of which 36.8% consider themselves “Left”, while 39.8% consider themselves “Center left” (so quite similar).
Thanks David, I was thinking about this survey. I guess my point still stands—a leftist EA in Scandinavia doesn’t mean the same thing as a leftist in the US, and my guess is that the majority of what these EAs call ‘left’ would be seen as center-left or even moderate right-wing in other countries (such as France or Sweden).
It’s worth noting that:
Results don’t vary so dramatically across most countries in our data, with none of the countries with the largest number of EAs showing less than ~35% identifying as “Left”.
The majority of EAs and the majority of EA left/center-leftists are outside the US
David can presumably answer this with the cross-tabs. My guess is that French and Scandinavian EAs also say they are left wing more frequently than right wing.
Also, while you’re right there are geographical differences between countries along the left-right axis, I don’t think you can summarize it as ‘Americans are more right wing’. On many issues US leftists are much more extreme than europeans.
Confirmed. And not only that, but French EAs are more likely to say that they are Left, rather than Center left.
I think this is responding to a comment by Larks, not me.
You’re right sorry. Will move it!
‘On many issues US leftists are much more extreme than europeans. ’ Do you have data for this?
I recall, but can’t find a Financial Times article from year or two ago which gave polling showing that Dem voters in the US appear to be slightly more left-wing on social issues (other than abortion) than Labour voters in the UK. That supports “left is left-er in the US on social issues.” But this was outweighed by conservatives voters in the UK being FAR to the left of Republicans on social issues, so it also supports “US more right-wing overall. And the cliché is that the UK is a right-wing outlier by Western European standards (though I haven’t seen hard data backing that up, and I suspect that insofar as it is true, we’re talking economic left rather than social).
I think left-leaning Americans are often keener on a specific set of taboos around talking in a sufficiently “politically correct/woke”* way. But that is not really the same thing as being more left-wing on substantive issues, not even social issues. (I’m not very keen on that way of talking, but I do believe in trans inclusion, except maybe in some sport, probably support open borders and less restrictive drug laws, probably reject retributivism about punishment, am pro-choice, at least neutral to mildly favourable on deliberately trying to employ more women and people of colour in positions of influence etc.)
*I hate these terms, but there is no non-pejorative equivalent and everyone knows roughly what I mean.
I’m curious why this post got −3 worth of downvotes (at time of writing). It seems like a pretty straightforward statement of our results.
I didn’t downvote you, but I would guess those who did were probably objecting to this
Self-identified leftists, myself included, generally see modern liberalism as a qualitatively different ideology. Imagine someone at Charity Navigator[1] offhandedly describing EA as “basically the same as us”. Now imagine that the longtermism discourse had gotten so bad that basically every successful EA organization could expect to experience periodic coup attempts, and “they’re basically Charity Navigator” was the canonical way to insult people on the other side. That’s what “left = very liberal” looks like from here.
before they started doing impact ratings
It sounds like you are reading my comment as saying that “center left” is very similar to “left”. But I think it’s pretty clear from the full quote that that’s not what I’m saying.
The OP says that EA is 80% “center-left”. I correct them, and say that EA is 36.8% left and 39.8% “Center left.”
The “(so quite similar)” here refers to the percentages 36.8% and 39.8% (indeed, these are likely not even statistically significant differences).
I can see how, completely in the abstract, one could read the claim as being that “Left” and “Center left” are similar ideologies. But, in context, it only makes sense for me to be making the observation that the percentages of “Left” and “Center left” are quite similar (challenging OP’s claim that EA is all Center left). If I were asserting that “Left” and “Center left” are “quite similar”, then I’d be minimising my own claim (many EAs are “Left” not merely “Center left”).
That said, I’m not sure that mistake is the reason for the downvote, since my other comment also got downvoted. And that one just:
Shows the breakdown by countries
Confirms Larks’ guess that “French and Scandinavian EAs also say they are left wing more frequently than right wing.”
Adds that French EAs are more likely to say they are “Left” than “Center left”.
Now that you point it out I agree that’s the more plausible reading, but it genuinely wasn’t the one that occurred to me first.