I personally think the EA community could plausibly grow 1000-fold compared to its current size, i.e. to 2 million people, which would correspond to ~0.1% of the Western population. I think EA is unlikely to be able to attract >1% of the (Western and non-Western) population primarily because understanding EA ideas (and being into them) typically requires a scientific and prosocial/altruistic mindset, advanced education, and the right age (no younger than ~16, not old enough to be too busy with lots of other life goals). Trying to attract >1% of the population would in my view likely lead to a harmful dilution of the EA community. We should decide whether we want to grow more than 1000-fold once we’ve grown 100-fold and have more information.
I meant this slightly differently than you interpreted it I think.
My best guess is that less than 10% of the Western population are capable of entering potentially high impact career paths and we already have plenty of people in the EA community for whom this is not possible. This can be for a variety of reasons: they are not hard-working enough, not smart enough, do not have sufficient educational credentials, are chronically ill, etc.
But maybe you think that most people in the current EA community are very well qualified to enter high impact career paths and our crux is there?
While I agree that government jobs are easier to get into than other career paths lauded as high impact in the EA Community (at least this seems to be true for the UK civil service), my impression is that I am a lot more skeptical than other EAs that government careers are a credible high impact career path. I say this as someone who has a government job. I have written a bit about this here, but my thinking on the matter is currently very much a work in progress and the linked post does not include most reasons why I feel skeptical. To me it seems like a solid argument in favour has just not been made.
I would feel excited about a project that tries to find out why donation rates are low (lack of money? lack of room for more funding? saving to give later and make donations more well-reasoned by giving lump sums? a false perception that money won’t do much good anymore? something else?) and how we might increase them. (What’s your guess for the reasons? I’d be very interested in more discussion about this, it might be worth a separate EA Forum post if that doesn’t exist already.)
I completely agree with this (and I think I have mentioned this to you before)!
I’m afraid I only have wild guesses why donation rates are low.
More generally, I’d be excited about more qualitative research into understanding what EA community members think their bottlenecks to achieving more impact are.
Thanks for clarifying – I basically agree with all of this. I particularly agree that the “government job” idea needs a lot more careful thinking and may not turn out to be as great as one might think.
I think our main disagreement might be that I think that donating large amounts effectively requires an understanding of EA ideas and altruistic dedication that only a small number of people are ever likely to develop, so I don’t see the “impact through donations” route as an unusually strong argument for doing EA messaging in a particular direction or having a very large movement. And I consider the fact that some people can have very impactful careers a pretty strong argument for emphasizing the careers angle a bit more than the donation angle (though we should keep communicating both).
(Disclaimer: Written very quickly.)
I also edited my original comment (added a paragraph at the top) to make this clearer; I think my previous comment kind of missed the point.
I meant this slightly differently than you interpreted it I think. My best guess is that less than 10% of the Western population are capable of entering potentially high impact career paths and we already have plenty of people in the EA community for whom this is not possible. This can be for a variety of reasons: they are not hard-working enough, not smart enough, do not have sufficient educational credentials, are chronically ill, etc. But maybe you think that most people in the current EA community are very well qualified to enter high impact career paths and our crux is there?
While I agree that government jobs are easier to get into than other career paths lauded as high impact in the EA Community (at least this seems to be true for the UK civil service), my impression is that I am a lot more skeptical than other EAs that government careers are a credible high impact career path. I say this as someone who has a government job. I have written a bit about this here, but my thinking on the matter is currently very much a work in progress and the linked post does not include most reasons why I feel skeptical. To me it seems like a solid argument in favour has just not been made.
I completely agree with this (and I think I have mentioned this to you before)! I’m afraid I only have wild guesses why donation rates are low. More generally, I’d be excited about more qualitative research into understanding what EA community members think their bottlenecks to achieving more impact are.
Thanks for clarifying – I basically agree with all of this. I particularly agree that the “government job” idea needs a lot more careful thinking and may not turn out to be as great as one might think.
I think our main disagreement might be that I think that donating large amounts effectively requires an understanding of EA ideas and altruistic dedication that only a small number of people are ever likely to develop, so I don’t see the “impact through donations” route as an unusually strong argument for doing EA messaging in a particular direction or having a very large movement. And I consider the fact that some people can have very impactful careers a pretty strong argument for emphasizing the careers angle a bit more than the donation angle (though we should keep communicating both).
(Disclaimer: Written very quickly.)
I also edited my original comment (added a paragraph at the top) to make this clearer; I think my previous comment kind of missed the point.