I’m not just talking about the most famous people, like Peter Singer or William MacAskill. I have a lot of more regular people in mind, like various employees at normal EA organizations that I don’t suspect many people here would individually know the names of.
I’m curious how much this would match other prestigious nonprofits. My quick guess is that EAs probably have more academic-leaning parents than those of the majority of other nonprofits. I’m sure that there are some higher-status nonprofits/organizations like UN, that have employees that come from wealth greater than the EA average.
Do you expect that the median employee at The Salvation Army comes from a wealthy family?
My impression is that the salvation army is quite huge, and probably not particularly high-status among privileged crowds.
I’m curious why is it important for people in your EA community to assess how impressive someone is?
I’m thinking of situations where someone thinks to themselves, “Person X has achieved a lot more than I have, they must just be more motivated/intelligent.”.
I think anyone anywhere has reached their position through a combination of merit, family/social networks, and fortunate life circumstances.
I agree. I’m not sure how unusual EA is here. My main point is that it happens here—not that it doesn’t happen in other similar areas.
I decided to do a “deep search” with Perplexity. It largely determines that charitable workers come from privilege. This does seem to focus on charities that pay less than EA ones do, but I’d flag that even EA ones are very often significantly worse than similar corporate positions.
“The evidence strongly suggests that certain clusters within the nonprofit sector—particularly executive leadership, board positions, fundraising roles, and positions in smaller or resource-constrained organizations—disproportionately draw individuals from backgrounds of wealth and privilege. This pattern stems from structural factors including compensation practices, opportunity cost considerations, networking requirements, and the relationship between financial independence and leadership autonomy.”
I’m not just talking about the most famous people, like Peter Singer or William MacAskill. I have a lot of more regular people in mind, like various employees at normal EA organizations that I don’t suspect many people here would individually know the names of.
I’m curious how much this would match other prestigious nonprofits. My quick guess is that EAs probably have more academic-leaning parents than those of the majority of other nonprofits. I’m sure that there are some higher-status nonprofits/organizations like UN, that have employees that come from wealth greater than the EA average.
My impression is that the salvation army is quite huge, and probably not particularly high-status among privileged crowds.
I’m thinking of situations where someone thinks to themselves, “Person X has achieved a lot more than I have, they must just be more motivated/intelligent.”.
I agree. I’m not sure how unusual EA is here. My main point is that it happens here—not that it doesn’t happen in other similar areas.
I decided to do a “deep search” with Perplexity. It largely determines that charitable workers come from privilege. This does seem to focus on charities that pay less than EA ones do, but I’d flag that even EA ones are very often significantly worse than similar corporate positions.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/do-a-bunch-of-research-on-the-XUyjcqCdQGKHoyl1LCrgZA