MHR🔸 comments on We are incredibly homogenous

[MHR🔸]

I think Ozy Brennan’s response to this section was very good. To quote the relevant section (though I would encourage readers to read the whole piece, which also includes some footnotes) :

It is true that effective altruism is very homogeneous, and this is a problem. I am 100% behind inclusivity efforts. And I praise the authors for their observation that inclusivity goes beyond the standard race/​class/​gender to matters of culture and intellectual diversity.

However, I think that this subject should be addressed with care. When you’re talking about homogeneity, it’s important to acknowledge effective altruist members of various groups underrepresented in effective altruism. Very few things are more unwelcoming than “by the way, people like you don’t exist here.”

Further, the description itself is offensive in many ways. Describing the average member of a movement with as many Jews as effective altruism as “culturally Protestant” is quite anti-Semitic. The authors fail to mention queerness and transness, probably because it would be a bit inconvenient for their point to mention that an enormous number of EAs are bisexual and trans women are represented in EA at something like forty times the population rate. The average effective altruist is “neurodivergent” which… is a bad thing, apparently? We need to go represent the neurotypical point of view, which is inescapable everywhere else in politics, corporations, and the media? The vague term “neurodivergence” actually understates the scale of effective altruism’s inclusion problem. Effective altruism is inclusive of a relatively narrow range of neurodivergences: it’s strikingly unwelcoming of, say, non-Aspie autistics.

Finally, some of this homogeneity is about things that are… true? I realize it’s rude to say so, but consuming animal products in the vast majority of situations in fact supports an industry which tortures animal and God in fact doesn’t exist.I am glad that the effective altruism movement has reached general consensus on these things! Effective Altruist Political Ideology is hardly correct in every detail, but I don’t think it’s a bad sign if a movement broadly agrees on a lot of political issues. Some political policies are harmful! Other policies make things better!

Further, perhaps I am interpreting the authors uncharitably, but I suspect that when they say “there should be more diversity of political opinions” they mean “there should be more leftists.” I am just ever-so-slightly suspicious that if my one-sided archnemesis Richard Hanania showed up with a post about how the top cause area is fighting wokeness, the authors would not be happy with this and in fact would probably start talking about racism. Which is fine! I too agree that fighting wokeness is not the top cause area! But in this case your criticism is not “effective altruism should be more inclusive of different political views,” it’s “effective altruism’s political views are wrong and they should have different, correct ones,” and it is dishonest to smuggle it in as an inclusivity thing.

[Gideon Futerman]

Not sure at all how Doing EA Better is ‘quite anti-semitic’, and I certainly think accusations of anti-semitism shouldn’t just be thrown around, particularly given how common a problem of anti-semitism actually is. I certainly don’t see how a rather amusing sterotypical EA description as ‘culturally Protestant’ is antisemitic; whilst there are lots of us Jews in EA, I’m not sure I find it at all offensive to not be mentioned!

I also strongly disagree that Doing EA Better suggests having lots of Sams in it is bad (hell, they say that such a description fits ‘Several of the authors of this post fit this description eerily well’), and so I’m not sure the accusations of, say, anti-neurodivergent people or antisemitism really hold much water. I also don’t get how ‘eats a narrow range of vegan ready meals’ becomes ‘think being vegan is bad’; it reads to me like a comment on how cultuyrally homogenous we are that huel, bol and planty etc could be a cultural thing, rather than all the other vegan foods out there

[Guy Raveh]

+1 to “how is this anti-Semitic?” (I’m also Jewish)

[Noah Scales]

You state: “Effective Altruist Political Ideology is hardly correct in every detail, but I don’t think it’s a bad sign if a movement broadly agrees on a lot of political issues. Some political policies are harmful! Other policies make things better!”

I identified EA as right-leaning because of lack of EA concern about climate change, as well as an emphasis in other areas (economics, personal finances, corporate regulation, technology development) that matches a right-leaning worldview. However, according to this 2018 survey , EA’s lean left, more than 60%.

There’s some overlap or really, flexibility, in how lefties in California approach financial and economic issues. Their left-leaning ideology expresses itself with opinions on abortion, racism, and climate change, and less with opinions about taxation, corporate regulation, or technology development. Which leads me to conclude that it is not helpful for me to identify EA’s with larger movements when dealing with EA views on specific issues. Better to focus on a specific EA brand of political ideology being developed inside the movement, and describe its formative influences (as the OP does), than to assume a more typical political ideology is present, such as liberal or conservative ideologies.

You state: “However, I think that this subject should be addressed with care. When you’re talking about homogeneity, it’s important to acknowledge effective altruist members of various groups underrepresented in effective altruism. Very few things are more unwelcoming than ‘by the way, people like you don’t exist here.’”

You think that acknowledging the diversity already present in EA is important, and I agree. The ConcernedEA’s don’t intend to insult or isolate any group. They are sincere in wanting to increase diversity in the EA movement, and their statements are to the effect that “The EA movement lacks diversity that would strengthen it provided there were some necessary overlap in values held by all.”