A couple reasons to be skeptical of the “top 1%” idea:
It does seem true that some people are much more famous than others, but I don’t think we can trust the distribution of fame to accurately reflect the distribution of contributions. The famous CEO may get all the credit, but maybe they couldn’t have done it without a whole host of key employees.
Even if the distribution of actual contributions is skewed, that doesn’t mean we can reliably predict the big contributors in advance. I found this paper which says work sample tests used in hiring (“suggested to be among the most valid predictors”) only weakly correlate with job performance. Speaking for myself, a few years ago some EAs I respected told me “John, I don’t think you are cut out for X.” That sounded plausible to me at the time, but I decided to take a shot at X anyways, and I now believe their assessment was incorrect.
But at the end of the day, constantly comparing yourself to others is not a good mental habit. Better to compare yourself with yourself. Which version of yourself will do more good: The version of yourself which wallows in despair, or the version of yourself which identifies people you think are doing great stuff and asks “Is there something I can do to help?” Last I checked, we havelonglists of EA project ideas which aren’t getting worked on.
A couple reasons to be skeptical of the “top 1%” idea:
It does seem true that some people are much more famous than others, but I don’t think we can trust the distribution of fame to accurately reflect the distribution of contributions. The famous CEO may get all the credit, but maybe they couldn’t have done it without a whole host of key employees.
Even if the distribution of actual contributions is skewed, that doesn’t mean we can reliably predict the big contributors in advance. I found this paper which says work sample tests used in hiring (“suggested to be among the most valid predictors”) only weakly correlate with job performance. Speaking for myself, a few years ago some EAs I respected told me “John, I don’t think you are cut out for X.” That sounded plausible to me at the time, but I decided to take a shot at X anyways, and I now believe their assessment was incorrect.
Longer exposition here.
But at the end of the day, constantly comparing yourself to others is not a good mental habit. Better to compare yourself with yourself. Which version of yourself will do more good: The version of yourself which wallows in despair, or the version of yourself which identifies people you think are doing great stuff and asks “Is there something I can do to help?” Last I checked, we have long lists of EA project ideas which aren’t getting worked on.