Yes EAs are especially altruistic. Although especially altruistic people exist across all economic classes and races, you’d still expect to see more privileged people in EA because they have the means (alongside other factors like the cycle of low diversity).
And so, EA is not a good measure of who is altruistic because it incidentally filters out people who are less wealthy, have less spare time, are more risk-averse, or don’t want to be in spaces that don’t represent them. If you have more privilege, you can (not want to, but have the means to) do more altruism. It’s important for people to have self-serving motivations if they don’t have much time or money: they know the best way to spend it.
That leads to my next point, which is that the vast majority of elite white rich people (needlessly) have selfish motivations, and can’t exactly be expected to altruistically set up co-ops or start a business with no expectation of high returns in the world where it works out. This makes your point irrelevant, because it shows that even when people have the means they are still mostly not altruistic.
EA is possible because of a small minority of people having the sufficient means (time or money) and a weird altruism. Anyone who feels this weird altruism is welcome. If you know how to make people more altruistic, that would be fantastic information. Note there would be many things with a higher priority on the to-do list than ‘socialism’.
Agree with your first two paragraphs (I do see a lot of altruism in non-EA communities, too, but EAs are surely towards the top end!). But by ‘altruism’ I don’t just mean giving away money, so it doesn’t necessarily track means. And by ‘different social conditions’ I don’t simply mean people being more prosperous. There’s a load of ideology and incentives that could be changed.
EA is straight altruism (to signal unusual virtue).
Socialism is reciprocal altruism, so could be expected to be more popular (in a high trust society)
Yes EAs are especially altruistic. Although especially altruistic people exist across all economic classes and races, you’d still expect to see more privileged people in EA because they have the means (alongside other factors like the cycle of low diversity).
And so, EA is not a good measure of who is altruistic because it incidentally filters out people who are less wealthy, have less spare time, are more risk-averse, or don’t want to be in spaces that don’t represent them. If you have more privilege, you can (not want to, but have the means to) do more altruism. It’s important for people to have self-serving motivations if they don’t have much time or money: they know the best way to spend it.
That leads to my next point, which is that the vast majority of elite white rich people (needlessly) have selfish motivations, and can’t exactly be expected to altruistically set up co-ops or start a business with no expectation of high returns in the world where it works out. This makes your point irrelevant, because it shows that even when people have the means they are still mostly not altruistic.
EA is possible because of a small minority of people having the sufficient means (time or money) and a weird altruism. Anyone who feels this weird altruism is welcome. If you know how to make people more altruistic, that would be fantastic information. Note there would be many things with a higher priority on the to-do list than ‘socialism’.
Agree with your first two paragraphs (I do see a lot of altruism in non-EA communities, too, but EAs are surely towards the top end!). But by ‘altruism’ I don’t just mean giving away money, so it doesn’t necessarily track means. And by ‘different social conditions’ I don’t simply mean people being more prosperous. There’s a load of ideology and incentives that could be changed.
EA is straight altruism (to signal unusual virtue). Socialism is reciprocal altruism, so could be expected to be more popular (in a high trust society)