A surprising number of EA researchers I know have highly accomplished parents. Many have family backgrounds (or have married into families) that are relatively affluent and scientific.
I believe the nonprofit world attracts people with financial security. While compensation is often modest, the work can offer significant prestige and personal fulfillment.
This probably comes with a bunch of implications.
But the most obvious implication to me, for people in this community, is to realize that it’s very difficult to access how impressive specific individual EAs/nonprofit people are, without understanding their full personal situations. Many prominent community members have reached their positions through a combination of merit, family/social networks, and fortunate life circumstances.
I actually have a draft of an EA Forum post that I’ve been sitting on for a while about this. So far I’m labelling the idea as something like “privileging the fortunate.” If anyone reading this would like to poke around my Google Doc and give me feedback, please let me know. I’d be very happy to have some help in transforming a rough collection of ideas into an EA Forum post.
I’ll quickly flag that I might recommend the workflow of:
Write up a bunch of thoughts on shortform. Maybe flag that this work is early, if you want.
Try to get feedback there.
If you still want to make it into a post, then at this point you’ll be in a better place to do so.
Personally, I feel more comfortable giving most feedback in public spaces like this. That way, if I give a lengthy comment, others can see it. I’m used to settings where I’d spend a lot of time commenting on someone’s Google Doc, for a reader count of 1, and typically most comments are ignored anyway.
Could you say a bit more about what you want to do about the draft? I assume you would want to criticize/comment on “privileging the fortunate”? And what goals you want to achieve the draft? Thanks!
Sure. What I want to do is get input to figure out if there are any ideas in the draft (or versions of those ideas) that are worth sharing, which I would then make into a post. Some of the ideas in the draft are probably just ramblings or otherwise not really worth sharing
I find it slightly concerning that many EAs come from privileged backgrounds, and the default community building strategy for acquiring new members is to target people from … privileged backgrounds.
Whenever you’re a Hammer and the solution you’ve arrived at is to look for Nails, I think an extra layer of scepticism should be applied.
Strong +1 to the extra layer of scrutiny, but at the same time, there are reasons that the privileged people are at the top in most places, having to do with the actual benefits they have and bring to the table. This is unfair and a bad thing for society, but also a fact to deal with.
If we wanted to try to address the unfairness and disparity, that seems wonderful, but simply recruiting people from less privileged groups doesn’t accomplish what is needed. Some obvious additional parts of the puzzle include needing to provide actual financial security to the less privileged people, helping them build networks outside of EA with influential people, and coaching and feedback.
Those all seem great, but I’m uncertain it’s a reasonable use of the community’s limited financial resources—and we should nonetheless acknowledge this as a serious problem.
Just to add to this (or maybe just say it in different terms)
I think that EA, when taken to certain logical conclusions, can seem ruthless and cold-hearted.
Here, it’s very difficult to optimize for both: 1. We want to make sure that we hire people such that we get the best straightforward ROI. 2. We want to make sure that the process is “fair” for applicants in some larger moralistic way.
There’s often tradeoffs here. Optimizing for (1) often comes with doing inexpensive and fast searches for talent, then paying the least that you need to. Optimizing for (2) often comes with extensive application processes and higher costs.
I think that the question is complex and nuanced, so I wouldn’t recommend going completely on the side of (1). At the same time, I could understand that a lot of people nervous about maximizing EV would generally stay close to (1).
People who don’t come from privileged backgrounds (e.g. the 700 million people living on less of $2.15/day) don’t have the resources to worry about helping others effectively, the vast majority doesn’t speak English, and so on.
Random anecdote: I’m in a hospital for a minor visit right now, and I don’t find it concerning at all that many doctors here are likely to be from privileged backgrounds
Surprising compared to what reference class? It’s true that Peter Singer came from an accomplished family (his maternal grandfather has a Wikipedia page) and apparently William MacAskill went to private school, but I don’t know how rare this is for somewhat influential philosophy professors in prestigious universities.
If you replaced “EA researchers” in your quick-take with “professors” or even “researchers”, I think it would still be true. (At least for some definition of “surprising”)
I believe the nonprofit world attracts people with financial security. While compensation is often modest, the work can offer significant prestige and personal fulfillment.
For what it’s worth, I think EA is absolutely non-representative of the non-profit world, salaries in EA are higher than average salaries. I know several people who make more in their EA role than they made in their previous role, and there are many EA people working in AI making tons of money.
Do you expect that the median employee at The Salvation Army comes from a wealthy family?
But the most obvious implication to me, for people in this community, is to realize that it’s very difficult to access how impressive specific individual EAs/nonprofit people are, without understanding their full personal situations. Many prominent community members have reached their positions through a combination of merit, family/social networks, and fortunate life circumstances.
I’m curious why is it important for people in your EA community to assess how impressive someone is? Do you mean for hiring decisions? I think anyone anywhere has reached their position through a combination of merit, family/social networks, and fortunate life circumstances.
Quick anecdote: I found this dynamic surprising in all the paths you mentioned: academia, research, EA research, and non-profit work. But I realized it very quickly for academia (one month) and painfully slowly for non-profits (several years).
In academia, the markers of success are transparent, the divide between “good” and “bad” jobs is sharp, and even very successful professors complain about the system.
On the other extreme, the non-profit sector is much fuzzier about credentials and career progression. So I might see an employee who graduated from a school like mine and think I could be that person, but not realize that they took on increasing amounts of responsibilities over various low-paid volunteer roles or not realize how much insider information they absorbed from their parents.
This caused me to underestimate how many skills I needed to build. Then I underestimated how long it would take to “make it”, which meant setting goals too high for myself and almost giving up too early.
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 don’t blame these people for having good circumstances. Of all the things one could do with privilege/gifts, I think that [working in effective areas] is about as good as it gets.
These people will generally not loudly talk about their background much. It’s an awkward topic to bring it up, and raising it could easily do more harm than good.
I myself have had a bunch of advantages I’m grateful for, I’m very arguably in this crowd.
There’s clearly a challenging question of how status should be thought about in such a community. It seems very normal for communities to develop some sort of social hierarchy, typically for reasons that are mostly unfair (and it’s not clear what a fair hierarchy even means). I think the easy thing to argue is that people should generally be slow to either idolize individuals who seem to do well, or to think poorly of people who seem to be ineffective/bad.
A surprising number of EA researchers I know have highly accomplished parents. Many have family backgrounds (or have married into families) that are relatively affluent and scientific.
I believe the nonprofit world attracts people with financial security. While compensation is often modest, the work can offer significant prestige and personal fulfillment.
This probably comes with a bunch of implications.
But the most obvious implication to me, for people in this community, is to realize that it’s very difficult to access how impressive specific individual EAs/nonprofit people are, without understanding their full personal situations. Many prominent community members have reached their positions through a combination of merit, family/social networks, and fortunate life circumstances.
I actually have a draft of an EA Forum post that I’ve been sitting on for a while about this. So far I’m labelling the idea as something like “privileging the fortunate.” If anyone reading this would like to poke around my Google Doc and give me feedback, please let me know. I’d be very happy to have some help in transforming a rough collection of ideas into an EA Forum post.
I’ll quickly flag that I might recommend the workflow of:
Write up a bunch of thoughts on shortform. Maybe flag that this work is early, if you want.
Try to get feedback there.
If you still want to make it into a post, then at this point you’ll be in a better place to do so.
Personally, I feel more comfortable giving most feedback in public spaces like this. That way, if I give a lengthy comment, others can see it. I’m used to settings where I’d spend a lot of time commenting on someone’s Google Doc, for a reader count of 1, and typically most comments are ignored anyway.
Could you say a bit more about what you want to do about the draft? I assume you would want to criticize/comment on “privileging the fortunate”? And what goals you want to achieve the draft? Thanks!
Sure. What I want to do is get input to figure out if there are any ideas in the draft (or versions of those ideas) that are worth sharing, which I would then make into a post. Some of the ideas in the draft are probably just ramblings or otherwise not really worth sharing
I find it slightly concerning that many EAs come from privileged backgrounds, and the default community building strategy for acquiring new members is to target people from … privileged backgrounds.
Whenever you’re a Hammer and the solution you’ve arrived at is to look for Nails, I think an extra layer of scepticism should be applied.
Strong +1 to the extra layer of scrutiny, but at the same time, there are reasons that the privileged people are at the top in most places, having to do with the actual benefits they have and bring to the table. This is unfair and a bad thing for society, but also a fact to deal with.
If we wanted to try to address the unfairness and disparity, that seems wonderful, but simply recruiting people from less privileged groups doesn’t accomplish what is needed. Some obvious additional parts of the puzzle include needing to provide actual financial security to the less privileged people, helping them build networks outside of EA with influential people, and coaching and feedback.
Those all seem great, but I’m uncertain it’s a reasonable use of the community’s limited financial resources—and we should nonetheless acknowledge this as a serious problem.
Just to add to this (or maybe just say it in different terms)
I think that EA, when taken to certain logical conclusions, can seem ruthless and cold-hearted.
Here, it’s very difficult to optimize for both:
1. We want to make sure that we hire people such that we get the best straightforward ROI.
2. We want to make sure that the process is “fair” for applicants in some larger moralistic way.
There’s often tradeoffs here. Optimizing for (1) often comes with doing inexpensive and fast searches for talent, then paying the least that you need to. Optimizing for (2) often comes with extensive application processes and higher costs.
I think that the question is complex and nuanced, so I wouldn’t recommend going completely on the side of (1). At the same time, I could understand that a lot of people nervous about maximizing EV would generally stay close to (1).
I don’t find it concerning at all.
People who don’t come from privileged backgrounds (e.g. the 700 million people living on less of $2.15/day) don’t have the resources to worry about helping others effectively, the vast majority doesn’t speak English, and so on.
Random anecdote: I’m in a hospital for a minor visit right now, and I don’t find it concerning at all that many doctors here are likely to be from privileged backgrounds
Surprising compared to what reference class? It’s true that Peter Singer came from an accomplished family (his maternal grandfather has a Wikipedia page) and apparently William MacAskill went to private school, but I don’t know how rare this is for somewhat influential philosophy professors in prestigious universities.
If you replaced “EA researchers” in your quick-take with “professors” or even “researchers”, I think it would still be true. (At least for some definition of “surprising”)
For what it’s worth, I think EA is absolutely non-representative of the non-profit world, salaries in EA are higher than average salaries. I know several people who make more in their EA role than they made in their previous role, and there are many EA people working in AI making tons of money.
Do you expect that the median employee at The Salvation Army comes from a wealthy family?
I’m curious why is it important for people in your EA community to assess how impressive someone is? Do you mean for hiring decisions? I think anyone anywhere has reached their position through a combination of merit, family/social networks, and fortunate life circumstances.
Quick anecdote: I found this dynamic surprising in all the paths you mentioned: academia, research, EA research, and non-profit work. But I realized it very quickly for academia (one month) and painfully slowly for non-profits (several years).
In academia, the markers of success are transparent, the divide between “good” and “bad” jobs is sharp, and even very successful professors complain about the system.
On the other extreme, the non-profit sector is much fuzzier about credentials and career progression. So I might see an employee who graduated from a school like mine and think I could be that person, but not realize that they took on increasing amounts of responsibilities over various low-paid volunteer roles or not realize how much insider information they absorbed from their parents.
This caused me to underestimate how many skills I needed to build. Then I underestimated how long it would take to “make it”, which meant setting goals too high for myself and almost giving up too early.
Another random anecdote: I was reading the Wikipedia page of an ultramarathon runner, and apparently her father is a famous mathematician
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
Also, quickly:
I don’t blame these people for having good circumstances. Of all the things one could do with privilege/gifts, I think that [working in effective areas] is about as good as it gets.
These people will generally not loudly talk about their background much. It’s an awkward topic to bring it up, and raising it could easily do more harm than good.
I myself have had a bunch of advantages I’m grateful for, I’m very arguably in this crowd.
There’s clearly a challenging question of how status should be thought about in such a community. It seems very normal for communities to develop some sort of social hierarchy, typically for reasons that are mostly unfair (and it’s not clear what a fair hierarchy even means). I think the easy thing to argue is that people should generally be slow to either idolize individuals who seem to do well, or to think poorly of people who seem to be ineffective/bad.