I think it’s valuable to note that the type of people who do well in government are a specific type of person with a specific type of approach to reality, and they are spending many hours of the day in a completely different mindset (buried in a less-nerdy, more toxic environment) than most people in and around EA (buried in a more-nerdy, less toxic environment). A culture of futility is very pervasive in government and possibly important in order to do well at all. People in government roles are pretty far out-of-distribution relative to EA as a whole and possibly also potentially have a biased view of government as well due to higher access to jobs in parts of government with higher turnover and lower patriotism, even if those specific parts aren’t very representative of the parts that matter. Of course, it’s also possible that they got where they are mostly because they’re just that good.
Such a gap would unambiguously be worth analyzing, but probably not in a public forum post imo (especially because it’s probably already being done by people privately).
I think it’s valuable to note that the type of people who do well in government are a specific type of person with a specific type of approach to reality, and they are spending many hours of the day in a completely different mindset (buried in a less-nerdy, more toxic environment) than most people in and around EA (buried in a more-nerdy, less toxic environment). A culture of futility is very pervasive in government and possibly important in order to do well at all. People in government roles are pretty far out-of-distribution relative to EA as a whole and possibly also potentially have a biased view of government as well due to higher access to jobs in parts of government with higher turnover and lower patriotism, even if those specific parts aren’t very representative of the parts that matter. Of course, it’s also possible that they got where they are mostly because they’re just that good.
Such a gap would unambiguously be worth analyzing, but probably not in a public forum post imo (especially because it’s probably already being done by people privately).