Re the post On Elitism in EA. Here is the longer version of my thoughts before I realized it could be condensed a lot:
I don’t think I follow your model. You define elitism the following way:
Elitism in EA usually manifests as a strong preference for hiring and funding people from top universities, companies, and other institutions where social power, competence, and wealth tend to concentrate. Although elitism can take many other forms, for our purposes, we’ll be using this definition moving forward.
In other words, the “elite” is defined as people who go to top universities etc.
By this definition, you say that senior-level positions should select heavily for the elite in the sense of having the most prestige:
Senior-level positions
In these cases, elitism is beneficial because specialized competence and leadership are key to being successful in senior roles (e.g. CEOs, senior AI engineers, research leads) and these are traits highly correlated with elite environments. Furthermore, candidates for senior level positions are likely to have been in the EA space for some time, so references and prior experience can act as testaments for traits like altruism, agency, and critical thinking.
Basically, this is saying that “the elite” (in the sense of having most prestige in conventional settings etc) should be preferentially selected for EA senior-level positions, even among people who have been in the EA space for quite a while, despite us presumably having much stronger direct signals of competency, alignment, etc, from them working in EA.
But you also say:
Entry-level employees
For entry-level positions (e.g. research interns, junior engineers) competence differences between those from elite and non-elite backgrounds matter less. Favoring non-elites at this level also gives them an opportunity to gain experience, which is generally easier for elites to obtain.
This seems surprising/confusing to me, because I’m not seeing where advancement opportunities for non-elites come into your model.
I think previously my advice for very competent elites and very competent non-elites will be pretty similar:
Do work that maximizes career capital (especially learning good skills and network) while keeping an eye out for the most important problems, whether in or outside of EA.
At some point, switch from optimizing primarily for career capital to optimizing primarily for impact
But if it were the case that career advancement opportunities for non-elites are weak, I should instead advocate that people who don’t have a prestigious background:
Do work that maximizes prestige, especially outside of EA (e.g. joining FAANG, elite grad schools, etc)
Climb the ranks until either you’re “so good they can’t ignore you” or more accurately “so prestigious they can’t ignore you.”
Optimize for both “normal” forms of career capital and direct impact afterwards
See if you can advance in EA orgs then. If not, then you aren’t prestigious enough, go back to step #1.
I don’t think “people’s initial jobs should be outside of movement EA” is crazy advice, see Karnofsky. But it would be bad if we advise non-elites to do EA jobs without informing them that the career advancement opportunities are dim.
Re the post On Elitism in EA. Here is the longer version of my thoughts before I realized it could be condensed a lot:
I don’t think I follow your model. You define elitism the following way:
In other words, the “elite” is defined as people who go to top universities etc.
By this definition, you say that senior-level positions should select heavily for the elite in the sense of having the most prestige:
Basically, this is saying that “the elite” (in the sense of having most prestige in conventional settings etc) should be preferentially selected for EA senior-level positions, even among people who have been in the EA space for quite a while, despite us presumably having much stronger direct signals of competency, alignment, etc, from them working in EA.
But you also say:
This seems surprising/confusing to me, because I’m not seeing where advancement opportunities for non-elites come into your model.
I think previously my advice for very competent elites and very competent non-elites will be pretty similar:
Do work that maximizes career capital (especially learning good skills and network) while keeping an eye out for the most important problems, whether in or outside of EA.
At some point, switch from optimizing primarily for career capital to optimizing primarily for impact
But if it were the case that career advancement opportunities for non-elites are weak, I should instead advocate that people who don’t have a prestigious background:
Do work that maximizes prestige, especially outside of EA (e.g. joining FAANG, elite grad schools, etc)
Climb the ranks until either you’re “so good they can’t ignore you” or more accurately “so prestigious they can’t ignore you.”
Optimize for both “normal” forms of career capital and direct impact afterwards
See if you can advance in EA orgs then. If not, then you aren’t prestigious enough, go back to step #1.
I don’t think “people’s initial jobs should be outside of movement EA” is crazy advice, see Karnofsky. But it would be bad if we advise non-elites to do EA jobs without informing them that the career advancement opportunities are dim.