The downvoting is good. On any other forum that was close to 80% leftists, though, I would expect zero eugenicists and a majority in sympathy with a pretty broad description of socialism. I’m not saying this post deserves more sympathy—I’m saying the survey results still seem strange to me
My evidence is all anecdotal, so I could be wrong, but I think the discrepancy between outside impression of EA/EA Forum behavior and the survey comes from two things:
The EA “populace” who responds to the survey has quite different views than EA leadership. EA is very top down behind the scenes. So despite relatively high degrees of lefti-ness in the populace, the money and “vibe” is very neolib to libertarian. E.g., public figures like Rob Wiblin have done neolib-signalling stuff in the past, I expect some people at the top at OP are more centrist/neoliberal than lefty, etc.
The EA Forum commentariat leans more neolib/libertarian and has more people espousing racist views, when compared to EA forum lurkers (who do fill out the survey). I and most of the EA-ish folks I know in person are more left than center-left politically, and we all complain a lot about the racism in EA. But it feels uncorrectable and most of us aren’t comment-y type people who want to get into arguments on the internet, so we’re underrepresented in the Forum.
Though 80% of EAs are left-leaning, the plurality of about 40% of EAs are centre-left, and only 37% classified themselves as left. Most likely the centre-left are social liberals and left-leaning centrists, while a good chunk of the left are social democrats and progressives. Actual leftists in the sense of democratic socialists/anarchists/Marxists/etc. are probably much less than that. 5 out of 21 is about 24%, which would be 65% of the 37% that are generally left-wing.
The downvoting is good. On any other forum that was close to 80% leftists, though, I would expect zero eugenicists and a majority in sympathy with a pretty broad description of socialism. I’m not saying this post deserves more sympathy—I’m saying the survey results still seem strange to me
My evidence is all anecdotal, so I could be wrong, but I think the discrepancy between outside impression of EA/EA Forum behavior and the survey comes from two things:
The EA “populace” who responds to the survey has quite different views than EA leadership. EA is very top down behind the scenes. So despite relatively high degrees of lefti-ness in the populace, the money and “vibe” is very neolib to libertarian. E.g., public figures like Rob Wiblin have done neolib-signalling stuff in the past, I expect some people at the top at OP are more centrist/neoliberal than lefty, etc.
The EA Forum commentariat leans more neolib/libertarian and has more people espousing racist views, when compared to EA forum lurkers (who do fill out the survey). I and most of the EA-ish folks I know in person are more left than center-left politically, and we all complain a lot about the racism in EA. But it feels uncorrectable and most of us aren’t comment-y type people who want to get into arguments on the internet, so we’re underrepresented in the Forum.
Though 80% of EAs are left-leaning, the plurality of about 40% of EAs are centre-left, and only 37% classified themselves as left. Most likely the centre-left are social liberals and left-leaning centrists, while a good chunk of the left are social democrats and progressives. Actual leftists in the sense of democratic socialists/anarchists/Marxists/etc. are probably much less than that. 5 out of 21 is about 24%, which would be 65% of the 37% that are generally left-wing.
Source: (Survey Data)