I’m glad that you mentioned EA being young. I am in my 30s and fairly new to reading about EA, having just started to read books and forum posts within the past month or two. The youth is very surprising to me, and it is something I’ve been thinking about for the past few days. This isn’t a well thought out thesis, but I will share my rough thoughts:
First, if a middle aged person sees a community of a bunch of 20 somethings, he/she will likely conclude “this isn’t meant for me” and walk away (even if the 20 somethings are friendly). Thus, potential collaborators are turned off.
Second, there are a lot of biases blind spots that younger people will have simply due to a lack of life experience. Maybe it is about having children, about the financial stresses of taking care of financial commitments without help from scholarships or parents, or simply about having a more “zoomed out” view of events which allows one to recognize patterns. Often it is simply the empathy and understanding that comes from having encountered situations over the course of one’s life. Thus, I’d suggest that the EA movement is missing out on perspectives/wisdom/experience due to the demographics skewing so young.
That being said, I understand that equality and representation are not core values of the EA community. So I’m not sure where it leaves me, but I’ll keep mulling over it.
(there is also the idea of the demographics skewing toward upper class and the perspectives/biases that come as a result, as it seems most EAs are able to afford a university education and many are able to afford to start their own organization immediately after finishing their education without any work experience, but since that isn’t related to age I’ll set that aside for now)
I’m glad that you mentioned EA being young. I am in my 30s and fairly new to reading about EA, having just started to read books and forum posts within the past month or two. The youth is very surprising to me, and it is something I’ve been thinking about for the past few days. This isn’t a well thought out thesis, but I will share my rough thoughts:
First, if a middle aged person sees a community of a bunch of 20 somethings, he/she will likely conclude “this isn’t meant for me” and walk away (even if the 20 somethings are friendly). Thus, potential collaborators are turned off.
Second, there are a lot of biases blind spots that younger people will have simply due to a lack of life experience. Maybe it is about having children, about the financial stresses of taking care of financial commitments without help from scholarships or parents, or simply about having a more “zoomed out” view of events which allows one to recognize patterns. Often it is simply the empathy and understanding that comes from having encountered situations over the course of one’s life. Thus, I’d suggest that the EA movement is missing out on perspectives/wisdom/experience due to the demographics skewing so young.
That being said, I understand that equality and representation are not core values of the EA community. So I’m not sure where it leaves me, but I’ll keep mulling over it.
(there is also the idea of the demographics skewing toward upper class and the perspectives/biases that come as a result, as it seems most EAs are able to afford a university education and many are able to afford to start their own organization immediately after finishing their education without any work experience, but since that isn’t related to age I’ll set that aside for now)
As someone in their late 30s with kids often identified as one of the “older” EAs, I strongly agree with this.
And to quote Monty Python: “I’m thirty seven—I’m not old!”