Can anyone give any outside-view reason to think EA is “unusually good at ‘epistemics’ / thinking about things” [...]?
Here are some possible outside-view reasons, not saying any of them is necessarily true (though I suspect some probably are):
Maybe EAs (on average) have higher educational attainment than the population at large, and having higher educational attainment is correlated with better epistemics.
Maybe EAs write and read more about epistemics and related topics than the population at large, and …
Maybe EAs would score better on a battery of forecasting questions than the population at large, and …
Maybe EAs are higher earners than the population at large, and …
Maybe EAs read more philosophy than the population at large, and …
Of course it depends which group you compare to, and which thing people are meant to be thinking about.
Thanks. I was thinking more of the scientific establishment, or other professional communities and advocacy groups, or organisations like the Gates Foundation. Most of whom seem to have very different ideas from EA in some areas at least.
Edit to add: note that the claim is that EA is unusually good at these things.
Here are some possible outside-view reasons, not saying any of them is necessarily true (though I suspect some probably are):
Maybe EAs (on average) have higher educational attainment than the population at large, and having higher educational attainment is correlated with better epistemics.
Maybe EAs write and read more about epistemics and related topics than the population at large, and …
Maybe EAs would score better on a battery of forecasting questions than the population at large, and …
Maybe EAs are higher earners than the population at large, and …
Maybe EAs read more philosophy than the population at large, and …
Of course it depends which group you compare to, and which thing people are meant to be thinking about.
Thanks. I was thinking more of the scientific establishment, or other professional communities and advocacy groups, or organisations like the Gates Foundation. Most of whom seem to have very different ideas from EA in some areas at least.
Edit to add: note that the claim is that EA is unusually good at these things.
Btw, I’m not sure why your comment got downvoted (I upvoted it), and would be curious to hear the reasoning of someone who downvoted.