Indeed, IIRC, EAs tend to be more progressive/left-of-center than the general population. I can’t find the source for this claim right now.
The 2019 EA Survey says:
“The majority of respondents (72%) reported identifying with the Left or Center Left politically and just over 3% were on the Right or Center Right, very similar to 2018.”
I think the survey is fairly strong evidence that EA has a comparative advantage in terms of recruiting left and center left people, and should lean into that.
The other side though is that the numbers show that there are a lot of libertarians (around 8 percent) and more ‘center left’ people who responded to the survey than there are ‘left’ people. There are substantial parts of SJ politics that are extremely disliked amongst most libertarians, and lots of ‘center left’ people. So while it might be okay from a recruiting and community stability pov to not really pay attention to right wing ideas, it is likely essential for avoiding community breakdown to maintain the current situation where this isn’t a politicized space vis a vis left v center left arguments.
Probably the idea approach is some sort of marketing segmentation where the people in Yale or Harvard EA communities use a different recruiting pitch and message that emphasizes the way that EA is a way to fulfill the broader aim of attacking global oppression, inequity and systemic issues, while people who are talking to Silicon Valley inspired earn-to-give tech bros should keep with the current messages that seem to strongly resonate with them.
More succinctly: Scott Alexander shouldn’t change what he’s saying, but a guy trying to convince Yale Law students to join up shouldn’t sound exactly like Scott.
Epistemologically this suggests we should spend more time engaging with the ideas of people who identify as being on the right, since clearly this is very likely to a bigger blindspot than ideas popular with people who are ‘left wing’.
The 2019 EA Survey says:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wtQ3XCL35uxjXpwjE/ea-survey-2019-series-community-demographics-and#Politics
I think the survey is fairly strong evidence that EA has a comparative advantage in terms of recruiting left and center left people, and should lean into that.
The other side though is that the numbers show that there are a lot of libertarians (around 8 percent) and more ‘center left’ people who responded to the survey than there are ‘left’ people. There are substantial parts of SJ politics that are extremely disliked amongst most libertarians, and lots of ‘center left’ people. So while it might be okay from a recruiting and community stability pov to not really pay attention to right wing ideas, it is likely essential for avoiding community breakdown to maintain the current situation where this isn’t a politicized space vis a vis left v center left arguments.
Probably the idea approach is some sort of marketing segmentation where the people in Yale or Harvard EA communities use a different recruiting pitch and message that emphasizes the way that EA is a way to fulfill the broader aim of attacking global oppression, inequity and systemic issues, while people who are talking to Silicon Valley inspired earn-to-give tech bros should keep with the current messages that seem to strongly resonate with them.
More succinctly: Scott Alexander shouldn’t change what he’s saying, but a guy trying to convince Yale Law students to join up shouldn’t sound exactly like Scott.
Epistemologically this suggests we should spend more time engaging with the ideas of people who identify as being on the right, since clearly this is very likely to a bigger blindspot than ideas popular with people who are ‘left wing’.
Thanks!