I believe my father qualifies as “conservative” (I don’t have a clear definition for “conservative”, and age is a confounding factor in this case, but that he was a Trump voter in 2020, generally opposes immigration, and loves meat indicate him as conservative), and have discussed EA ideals and concepts with him at length over the span of several years.
He supports altruism, and in general believes that altruistic practices (he mainly discusses global health and development) could be more effective. On this note, he believes EA is “good”. However, when considering longtermist causes / x-risk, he differs from what I believe to be the community consensus in that he believes nuclear risk and natural risks pose a greater threat than bioterrorism (nothing concerning lab leaks have been brought up) and risk from AI.
I asked him if he believes he would have been part of EA had it existed when he was 15-25, and he replied that he might have in the context of global health and development.
I would be interested in an extension question for this post: Have EAs asked their conservative family members or parents for their thoughts on EA or adjacent concepts?
I have not directly asked my parents for their views on EA, but I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ve gotten the sense that they would probably also be supportive of trad-EA work like in health and development, but I suspect that they are not particularly sympathetic to the focus on x-risks—especially actual extinction from things like AI—given their religious views, which is one of the main reasons I don’t tend to bring it up that much in the first place.
I believe my father qualifies as “conservative” (I don’t have a clear definition for “conservative”, and age is a confounding factor in this case, but that he was a Trump voter in 2020, generally opposes immigration, and loves meat indicate him as conservative), and have discussed EA ideals and concepts with him at length over the span of several years.
He supports altruism, and in general believes that altruistic practices (he mainly discusses global health and development) could be more effective. On this note, he believes EA is “good”. However, when considering longtermist causes / x-risk, he differs from what I believe to be the community consensus in that he believes nuclear risk and natural risks pose a greater threat than bioterrorism (nothing concerning lab leaks have been brought up) and risk from AI.
I asked him if he believes he would have been part of EA had it existed when he was 15-25, and he replied that he might have in the context of global health and development.
I would be interested in an extension question for this post: Have EAs asked their conservative family members or parents for their thoughts on EA or adjacent concepts?
I have not directly asked my parents for their views on EA, but I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ve gotten the sense that they would probably also be supportive of trad-EA work like in health and development, but I suspect that they are not particularly sympathetic to the focus on x-risks—especially actual extinction from things like AI—given their religious views, which is one of the main reasons I don’t tend to bring it up that much in the first place.