Seeing the −10 downvotes and −7 agreement just shows how the vast majority of people at EA Conferences are Caucasians from elite, wealthy families, schools, or backgrounds.
I didn’t take a vote on Jordan’s comment because I feel Constance’s post is more about her strong merits and qualifications and not her ethnicity.
Seeing the −10 downvotes and −7 agreement just shows how the vast majority of people at EA Conferences are Caucasians from elite, wealthy families, schools, or backgrounds.
I think the reasoning here is suspect. If I see a lot of agreement upvotes on a comment that says “the vast majority of people at EA Conferences are Caucasians[etc]” I will, under most circumstances, update towards believing that there are more Caucasians[etc] at EA conferences, not less. Presumably you share this belief. However, you then say that seeing downvotes and disagreement is evidence that people in EA conferences are Caucasian[etc]. I think this reasoning is unsound.
FWIW I disagreed with Jordan’s comment, and I am not Caucasian. I also do not think of myself as coming from “elite, wealthy families, schools, or backgrounds” by Western standards, though of course this is all relative.
Upvote. My messaging was erroneous. I meant to say that the fact I mentioned the majority demographic possibly made people uncomfortable and then led them to downvote.
Ofc, the downvotes are also because of how my comment came off as aggressive. I appreciate the constructive response though, Linch.
Hi. Thanks for the constructive engagement! In my case I downvoted because of the combination of coming across aggressive and me thinking that this was not an accurate identification of the problem plus being worried it’d promote certain bad discussion norms that are increasingly common in the left-leaning parts of the internet.
I appreciate the constructive engagement and the apology. Thanks.
Yeah I really appreciate you trying to prevent the bad discussion norms and keep good-faith conversations.
I’m left social liberal and very progressive but I often feel aggressive attitudes and whining (which I did) doesn’t solve racial disparities and inequality and often misses the problems. And these are attitudes that I feel are too common among white, rich, liberals. (This isn’t me trying to talk bad about white, rich, liberals or say they all do this. It’s just trends I’ve noticed since joining EA a bit over a year ago.)
Without opining on the actual discussion: I don’t think the logic here is sound. The fact that many agreement votes to this can mean one thing, doesn’t mean many disagreement votes aren’t indicative of a similar thing. You could imagine casual paths leading to each of those outcomes.
Seeing how my comment above has 10 downvotes in karma and 10 downvotes in agreement feels like another example of how the group I mentioned is overrepresented when compared to the general population and how uncomfortable said group is about the truth.
The EA community cannot deny how EAG disproportionately has people from wealthy households and elite academic institutions. This fact shouldn’t be controversial, though I admit I could’ve phrased it in a nicer way.
I wonder how my comment would’ve faired if I just commented my second part.
While I didn’t downvote, I think your interpretation of the reasoning of the downvotes comes across as uncharitable, like they’d be thinking “Hey, my parents are wealthy and Caucasian, and I think it’s great that a majority of attendees here have the same background as me”. Or later you write as if the downvotes were meant to help with denying the fact of overrepresentation. In reality, I think all EAs I know would all else equal prefer if the broader movement had more diverse backgrounds. And there are people who work on reaching out to people who don’t hear about EA through the existing outreach channels, or to people who would become involved with more refined communication and support, e.g. Magnify Mentoring, or translators.
And Jordan’s initial comment doesn’t contribute so much, imo:
admissions to EA Global are not intended to be based on cred or committment, but on how much people would get out of the conference in terms of doing the most good, or how much they’d be able to help others with that (though I think this was never communicated particularly well) (some discussion about this here)
the gender ratio of EA is iirc around 70⁄30. Quick googling tells me that this is the same ratio as in Philosophy graduates and STEM workers, backgrounds that are fairly naturally overrepresented in EA due to the nature of the EA project and the careers the movement is focussing on most strongly. So I wouldn’t agree that it’s ridiculous.
Fair point. Upvote in karma. My comment wasn’t meant to insinuate that the EAs who downvoted would want EA to continue to be a white majority, but that the down votes could demonstrate how they disliked the truth of disparities my comment was stating and how it might’ve made them uncomfortable.
I think the Magnifying Mentor is a great program and am very pleased to have just found out it exists. But it’s meant for women, non-binary, and transgender people. Not people of color. My comments weren’t about gender or sex, although those are disparities that we should aim to lessen.
I did notice a woman at EAG tell her friend of the “20:3” ratio at a workshop. It was also this comment that made me realize how I was the only Hispanic in all the EAG events I attended until my second to last event on Sunday. In fact, Jordan’s reminder of the discrepancy in race and ethnicity was what caused me to make my comments. This is not me putting the blame on him or her. I have bad experiences with Caucasian EAs comments and “solutions” to racial and ethnic disparities and race relation issues.
I apologize for my snarky reaction and miscommunication and will keep it on the thread as a reminder to myself and others as not how to respond.
Maybe there’s some backwards reasoning going on of philosophy grads and STEM majors defining priorities around their skill sets…
“the gender ratio of EA is iirc around 70⁄30. Quick googling tells me that this is the same ratio as in Philosophy graduates and STEM workers, backgrounds that are fairly naturally overrepresented in EA due to the nature of the EA project and the careers the movement is focussing on most strongly. So I wouldn’t agree that it’s ridiculous.”
Yeah, that’s a fair worry and would be worth looking out for, though I spontaneously don’t feel like it’s among the most significant sources of the skew.
Some evidence that influential EAs have broader and less obviously biased views on what skills are most urgently needed is the career aptitudes advice from Holden Karnovsky, where he encourages EAs to significantly skill up in e.g. communication, politics, founding and running orgs, and community building.
Seeing the −10 downvotes and −7 agreement just shows how the vast majority of people at EA Conferences are Caucasians from elite, wealthy families, schools, or backgrounds.
I didn’t take a vote on Jordan’s comment because I feel Constance’s post is more about her strong merits and qualifications and not her ethnicity.
I think the reasoning here is suspect. If I see a lot of agreement upvotes on a comment that says “the vast majority of people at EA Conferences are Caucasians[etc]” I will, under most circumstances, update towards believing that there are more Caucasians[etc] at EA conferences, not less. Presumably you share this belief. However, you then say that seeing downvotes and disagreement is evidence that people in EA conferences are Caucasian[etc]. I think this reasoning is unsound.
FWIW I disagreed with Jordan’s comment, and I am not Caucasian. I also do not think of myself as coming from “elite, wealthy families, schools, or backgrounds” by Western standards, though of course this is all relative.
Upvote. My messaging was erroneous. I meant to say that the fact I mentioned the majority demographic possibly made people uncomfortable and then led them to downvote.
Ofc, the downvotes are also because of how my comment came off as aggressive. I appreciate the constructive response though, Linch.
Hi. Thanks for the constructive engagement! In my case I downvoted because of the combination of coming across aggressive and me thinking that this was not an accurate identification of the problem plus being worried it’d promote certain bad discussion norms that are increasingly common in the left-leaning parts of the internet.
I appreciate the constructive engagement and the apology. Thanks.
Yeah I really appreciate you trying to prevent the bad discussion norms and keep good-faith conversations.
I’m left social liberal and very progressive but I often feel aggressive attitudes and whining (which I did) doesn’t solve racial disparities and inequality and often misses the problems. And these are attitudes that I feel are too common among white, rich, liberals. (This isn’t me trying to talk bad about white, rich, liberals or say they all do this. It’s just trends I’ve noticed since joining EA a bit over a year ago.)
Without opining on the actual discussion: I don’t think the logic here is sound. The fact that many agreement votes to this can mean one thing, doesn’t mean many disagreement votes aren’t indicative of a similar thing. You could imagine casual paths leading to each of those outcomes.
I agree it’s technically possible but it seems kinda absurd to think this is likely.
Seeing how my comment above has 10 downvotes in karma and 10 downvotes in agreement feels like another example of how the group I mentioned is overrepresented when compared to the general population and how uncomfortable said group is about the truth.
The EA community cannot deny how EAG disproportionately has people from wealthy households and elite academic institutions. This fact shouldn’t be controversial, though I admit I could’ve phrased it in a nicer way.
I wonder how my comment would’ve faired if I just commented my second part.
While I didn’t downvote, I think your interpretation of the reasoning of the downvotes comes across as uncharitable, like they’d be thinking “Hey, my parents are wealthy and Caucasian, and I think it’s great that a majority of attendees here have the same background as me”. Or later you write as if the downvotes were meant to help with denying the fact of overrepresentation. In reality, I think all EAs I know would all else equal prefer if the broader movement had more diverse backgrounds. And there are people who work on reaching out to people who don’t hear about EA through the existing outreach channels, or to people who would become involved with more refined communication and support, e.g. Magnify Mentoring, or translators.
And Jordan’s initial comment doesn’t contribute so much, imo:
admissions to EA Global are not intended to be based on cred or committment, but on how much people would get out of the conference in terms of doing the most good, or how much they’d be able to help others with that (though I think this was never communicated particularly well) (some discussion about this here)
the gender ratio of EA is iirc around 70⁄30. Quick googling tells me that this is the same ratio as in Philosophy graduates and STEM workers, backgrounds that are fairly naturally overrepresented in EA due to the nature of the EA project and the careers the movement is focussing on most strongly. So I wouldn’t agree that it’s ridiculous.
Fair point. Upvote in karma. My comment wasn’t meant to insinuate that the EAs who downvoted would want EA to continue to be a white majority, but that the down votes could demonstrate how they disliked the truth of disparities my comment was stating and how it might’ve made them uncomfortable.
I think the Magnifying Mentor is a great program and am very pleased to have just found out it exists. But it’s meant for women, non-binary, and transgender people. Not people of color. My comments weren’t about gender or sex, although those are disparities that we should aim to lessen.
I did notice a woman at EAG tell her friend of the “20:3” ratio at a workshop. It was also this comment that made me realize how I was the only Hispanic in all the EAG events I attended until my second to last event on Sunday. In fact, Jordan’s reminder of the discrepancy in race and ethnicity was what caused me to make my comments. This is not me putting the blame on him or her. I have bad experiences with Caucasian EAs comments and “solutions” to racial and ethnic disparities and race relation issues.
I apologize for my snarky reaction and miscommunication and will keep it on the thread as a reminder to myself and others as not how to respond.
I appreciate the constructive criticism, Max.
Maybe there’s some backwards reasoning going on of philosophy grads and STEM majors defining priorities around their skill sets…
“the gender ratio of EA is iirc around 70⁄30. Quick googling tells me that this is the same ratio as in Philosophy graduates and STEM workers, backgrounds that are fairly naturally overrepresented in EA due to the nature of the EA project and the careers the movement is focussing on most strongly. So I wouldn’t agree that it’s ridiculous.”
Yeah, that’s a fair worry and would be worth looking out for, though I spontaneously don’t feel like it’s among the most significant sources of the skew.
Some evidence that influential EAs have broader and less obviously biased views on what skills are most urgently needed is the career aptitudes advice from Holden Karnovsky, where he encourages EAs to significantly skill up in e.g. communication, politics, founding and running orgs, and community building.