I have mixed-feelings concerning your post. I commend it for being so clear and easily understandable. There are trends in EA, and yours go into the ‘Let’s narrow EA because diversity is overrated’. As you say, you have no empirical evidence that diversity is bad ; and I will just give a few qualitative examples to demonstrate the opposite, so my level of confidence is around 55%, no more. Sorry in advance if the arguments I’ll lay will be hard to take in. Again, this is only my hunch.
It is well-known mechanism for people previously on the margins who have succeeded into prestigious, privileged places to be against diversity. I think about Priti Patel or Rishi Sunak ; take me in, but don’t let anyone enter after me. I believe this comes from a desire of being liked by those who you admire and want to feel as an equal—turning back on the very people you could have belonged to if you had been born ten years later is a way to legitimize your ozn belonging to the prestigious, powerful group. To push further, because it’s not you being ‘mean’, it stems from a place of self-doubt. You are not sure you deserve to be here (cf you referring not being better than your Boston pals) so its easier to think others like you don’t. There is a sociological field that explains such attitude, but I can’t find it now sadly. Some kind of survivor bias.
I do think that fellow South Africans or people coming from low-income countries can bring insights EAs in wealthy countries can’t. Thats the reason why the UN recruits people from these countries instead of giving the job to a white, wealthy candidate from a first world country who just got their masters in development. Its because people from these countries have experience living in these countries, and this a major arguments for global aid projects , which remain very important as McAskill said in a post here not a long time ago. AI devouring the rest of EA fields is a great concern for many, and I belong to those who think that AI is a big thing on its own—it requires a set of skills and political connections that must be separated from animal welfare, global aid, etc. I can develop if needed. AI is vastly important. AI is not the core of EA (yet, I hope).
‘Something which is largely just a nod to political correctness or a lost sense of global justice’ and there lies a big worry of mine. As an historian, I know that progress is not linear, and that progress is won by hard work (listen to the 80k podcast about slavery not being inevitable at all). This kind of argument is a pushback from a group of people who do not like to share resources, power and influence. And we see this pushback happening every single time progress is made, every time a group gets rights they were denied previously under false pretenses (racism or misogyny is a false pretense in my opinion). The problem here is that there is a hardcore group of people inside EA who do not relinquish competition from other people. Yeah, I know, EA is not supposed to be political. And I shall not be: my view is very pragmatic and I want the best people to do good.
I know that such discourse isn’t well-viewed in the community. And yet every day I see excellent people from the ‘diversity’ pool (understand women/non-white/non-STEM) being great at their new job, that they would not have gotten ten years ago before all the ‘political correctness’ talks. I intend to write a post giving figures as to why diversity is, in fact, necessary to keep producing the best people. And to give actionable answers. I expect pushback—that is the course of history :)
So, people. Think, I beg you. It is scary to have the feeling that while it is already hard to get an EA job, you have to compete with an always bigger pool of applicants because we give a chance to everyone. But if you care about impact, it is a reality everyone should accept.
I see that I am regularly downvoted, just like I was expecting, but I was expecting people to least answer in response, explaining their reasoning. Because it’s now easy to qssume that I am being downvoted by people who fear competition and refuse diversity for selfish reasons. Ockham razor here.
Edit: I see that either I’m not conveying my point well, or that people aren’t ready to hear this. I still think that this ‘pulling up the ladder behind’ thinking applies to OP, and if it’s offensive to say that, I’m sorry, and I mean it. I don’t see how it is offensive—they don’t know me, they don’t care about what I think of them, so if it’s not on a personal level, I don’t see how this is hurtful. If someone accuses me of being something I don’t think I am, I’ll brush it off—I know myself, and if it bothers me I’ll try to see if it’s because there is a parcel of truth or not at all. I don’t want to be mean or personal, I just think it’s a valuable thinking process to shed light on.
What doesn’t help is tthis feeling of everyone walking on eggshells when it comes to race or women, because one is afraid to say the wrong things/think that approaching these topics is useless and overrated. Even in our EA group which is probably one of the most progressive on earth about these issues, I know people feel these things I just talked about (they told me).
I might also be wrong and misunderstand completely what the author and his supporters think, and maybe all these people are very inclusive and care abot diversity. The focus on impact is absolutely understandable but it feels like an excuse—it doesn’t justify narrowing down and being elitist for me. Both aren’t incompatible, quite the opposite. But we’re not there yet. I don’t know what I should do—I still stand by my comments, but I don’t see the point of discussing this further, and I would not want people to think that I have stopped responding because I realize that I’m wrong but I don’t have the guts to acknowledge it. I just feel very, very tired of meeting hostility when I talk about these topics in this community.
It is well-known mechanism for people previously on the margins who have succeeded into prestigious, privileged places to be against diversity. I think about Priti Patel or Rishi Sunak ; take me in, but don’t let anyone enter after me. I believe this comes from a desire of being liked by those who you admire and want to feel as an equal—turning back on the very people you could have belonged to if you had been born ten years later is a way to legitimize your ozn belonging to the prestigious, powerful group.
This seems both pretty implausible to me and pretty rude. I’m not aware of any real evidence that this supposed ‘well-known’ mechanism is at play with Rishi, and it seems disrespectful to assume that ethnic minorities are not allowed to be conservatives out of genuine ideological agreement, rather than stockholm syndrome or survivor guilt.
It also seems like a story without an underlying phenomena to explain. Rishi’s cabinet, the body over whose makeup he has the most influence, is ~19% non-white if you exclude Rishi, basically exactly in-line with overall UK demographics (or higher if you include him); the Great Offices of State are 2⁄3 non-white (or 3⁄4 if you include him), significantly higher than the shadow cabinet.
So you cite stats of race, which I don’t believe at all is evidence of good practice. Its not about having a quota of a certain race. It’s about what you do with power. And so far Rishis cabinet has been having very conservative policies that do not benefit the majority of people who share the same skin color. It’s like saying that because you have cabinet full of women it’s diversity. Nope. Someone like Jacinda Ardern does act for women, but someone like Lizz Truss doesnt. It’s all about how you use power, not who uses power.
I see that I am regularly downvoted, just like I was expecting, but I was expecting people to least answer in response, explaining their reasoning. Because it’s now easy to qssume that I am being downvoted by people who fear competition and refuse diversity for selfish reasons. Ockham razor here.
If people upvoted you more, would you be more inclined to think that you’re mistaken?
I think that I am being downvoted for reasons that do not prove that I am wrong, but that are based on a classical impulse that many people have on these topics. And the fact that only two people made an effort to comment on why they thought that I am wrong is evidence that people do not want to justify why they dont like my comment, which again is related to this impulse I was talking about.
The only response I got was that diversity in a cabinet means that diversity is present, but if diversity does not use power to act on the unfairness, it does not matter. I still fail to see how all this is convincing.
The only response I got was that diversity in a cabinet means that diversity is present, but if diversity does not use power to act on the unfairness, it does not matter. I still fail to see how all this is convincing.
You have completely misunderstood my argument. You accused Rishi of ‘pulling up the ladder’ behind himself. The most recent part of the ‘ladder’ he climbed on the way to becoming Prime Minister was being in the cabinet, and he has complete control over the cabinet, so if he wanted to ‘pull up the ladder’ to try to prevent other ethnic minorities from becoming PM in the future the obvious thing for him to do would be to not choose them for these roles. However, this prediction of your claim is false, because he did choose them at rates equal or higher than you’d expect based on overall demographics. In fact I do not see any evidence he is trying to ‘pull up the ladder’ in order to fit in; you just don’t like conservative policies.
My point was that it’s not because rishi is in power that he will implement policy in favour of diversity. Actually he stays in the conservative lane that is factually detrimental to diversity (least wealthy populations). Rishi’s agenda is : 1) cutting taxes 2) cutting NHS for long-term disabilities and cutting social allowance for NHS 3) Reduce public spending and implement more austerity politics 4)harsher policies for small boats. Just like Priti Patel and Suella Braveman.
This is very much in line with Truss, Johnson and all conservative ministers. So him being from a different racial background doesn’t influence at all the way he uses his power. He rules as a conservative, for the upper class. Rishi’s main interest has nothing to do with his diversity background but rather the economic class to which he now belongs. The author of the post has now reached a good stage in EA, but he wants to narrow EA, which means that even less people from diverse background will be able to com
[Sunak] being from a different racial background doesn’t influence at all the way he uses his power.
Not sure if I understand your point correctly, but I reckon you don’t need to think Sunak has a “take me in, but don’t let anyone enter after me” mindset to understand his policies. He is a conservative, and enacts conservative policies—it seems like that is enough to explain it?
Or do you think that, even though he is a conservative, he as a person of Indian descent should understand that conservative policies are in fact harmful to minorities, and therefore not enact them?
Hi—thanks for engaging so thoroughly with the post, and for caring about our shared interest in diversity and inclusion within EA.
I have mixed-feelings concerning your post.
lol same.
2.
yours go into the ‘Let’s narrow EA because diversity is overrated’
I do want to point out that I don’t think I stated my own position on this topic anywhere. A reason for the post generally focusing more on the global approach to EA community building is because the status quo is to accept that narrowly focused community building (at top universities, and rich/influential cities like London and SFO) is valuable, and I think the case for global community building hasn’t been made as explicitly as the case for community building at top universities has been, for example.
3.
It is well-known mechanism for people previously on the margins who have succeeded into prestigious, privileged places to be against diversity. I think about Priti Patel or Rishi Sunak ; take me in, but don’t let anyone enter after me
Trying to charitably restate what I think you meant in point 1: In my post I express some doubt about my own value or belonging in the US EA community, and you’ve combined that with the aforementioned perception that I am against diversity and inclusion (because you think I support the ‘narrow’ version of community building) and suggested that this might be an example of the ‘pulling the ladder up from behind me’ phenomenon, which might generally be seen as part of many factors which affect underrepresentation in hierarchies.
How I can’t help but reading your point 1: you don’t know anything about me, or any of the work I have/haven’t done to try help ‘promote’ other EA’s from underrepresented groups over the past 5 years, but you’ve decided to try psychoanalyse me and then evoke the metaphor of me deliberately preventing others from succeeding. Whether or not this was your intention, I think other people have also interpreted your point in this way (an odhominem attack), which might explain the downvoting.
4.
I do think that fellow South Africans or people coming from low-income countries can bring insights EAs in wealthy countries can’t. Thats the reason why the UN recruits people from these countries instead of giving the job to a white, wealthy candidate from a first world country who just got their masters in development
I think this point is pointing to a point which I have maybe under-explained or poorly articulated. You are correct in the example you’re pointing out—those people would bring valuable skills and insights into UN in the context of working on local development projects. But I don’t think EA is like the UN in this case, I think EA could be explained (from a narrow EA point of view) as a movement of exceptionally wealthy and privileged people, for exceptionally wealthy and privileged people, to try and do the most good that they can. In this case, even though people from all over the world might bring unique and underrepresented perspectives to the table, the question is “how are these perspectives/experiences going to help with this specific project (of EA)?”. Specifically in the context of EA community building, if one thinks that the purpose of community building is to attract/retain/find/train the most wealthy and influential people in the world in order to solve the most pressing issues facing current and future generations, then I don’t find it convincing that we should be prioritising the ‘global EA’ model that I described in the post. That’s mainly the point I’d like decision makers in the community building space to address/clarify.
5.
This kind of argument is a pushback from a group of people who do not like to share resources, power and influence
I think you might just have a fundamental disagreement with people who think about justice and/or EA in a utilitarian way? If, from my perspective, EA is movement predicated on the acceptance that we have far too few resources to solve the worlds problems, and that we should try and allocate the resources we do have such that we produce the best outcomes for as many people (or to the highest degree) possible; then I don’t think that taking our resources and sharing them equally amongst everyone who wants some of them is the morally right thing to do, because I don’t think theres a reasonable argument for that likely producing the best outcomes.
well hm you’re probably underrating the degree to which people don’t like possibility of being held to a lower standard, feeling like it’s condescending, etc. when there’s stated adjustments for demographic representation. (perhaps polgar sisters is the example that’s close to my fingertips recently, but if you go to enough professional conferences or talk to enough people it doesn’t take long to run into some minority rolling their eyes at the inclusion effort).
who fear competition and refuse diversity for selfish reasons
I mean people have been telling me that my immutable characteristics put me on thin ice cuz everyone’s bored by cringefail whitemales for as long as I can remember, and it pretty much always makes me go “fine I’ll just be more clever or work harder”, which is probably a habit that’s been good for me if you think about it cuz it leads to me cultivating a higher standard for myself, lmao!
So you don’t even question the assumption that you are supposed to work harder because of your immutable characteristics, and that you find it normal to be pinned down twice harder because of them than any mediocre white male? Doesn’t seem very constructive to me, and again, it’s this ‘Ill get better myself and won’t care to challenge the norms for others’ mindset that is the reason why minorities keep being treated the way they are.
I have mixed-feelings concerning your post. I commend it for being so clear and easily understandable. There are trends in EA, and yours go into the ‘Let’s narrow EA because diversity is overrated’. As you say, you have no empirical evidence that diversity is bad ; and I will just give a few qualitative examples to demonstrate the opposite, so my level of confidence is around 55%, no more. Sorry in advance if the arguments I’ll lay will be hard to take in. Again, this is only my hunch.
It is well-known mechanism for people previously on the margins who have succeeded into prestigious, privileged places to be against diversity. I think about Priti Patel or Rishi Sunak ; take me in, but don’t let anyone enter after me. I believe this comes from a desire of being liked by those who you admire and want to feel as an equal—turning back on the very people you could have belonged to if you had been born ten years later is a way to legitimize your ozn belonging to the prestigious, powerful group. To push further, because it’s not you being ‘mean’, it stems from a place of self-doubt. You are not sure you deserve to be here (cf you referring not being better than your Boston pals) so its easier to think others like you don’t. There is a sociological field that explains such attitude, but I can’t find it now sadly. Some kind of survivor bias.
I do think that fellow South Africans or people coming from low-income countries can bring insights EAs in wealthy countries can’t. Thats the reason why the UN recruits people from these countries instead of giving the job to a white, wealthy candidate from a first world country who just got their masters in development. Its because people from these countries have experience living in these countries, and this a major arguments for global aid projects , which remain very important as McAskill said in a post here not a long time ago. AI devouring the rest of EA fields is a great concern for many, and I belong to those who think that AI is a big thing on its own—it requires a set of skills and political connections that must be separated from animal welfare, global aid, etc. I can develop if needed. AI is vastly important. AI is not the core of EA (yet, I hope).
‘Something which is largely just a nod to political correctness or a lost sense of global justice’ and there lies a big worry of mine. As an historian, I know that progress is not linear, and that progress is won by hard work (listen to the 80k podcast about slavery not being inevitable at all). This kind of argument is a pushback from a group of people who do not like to share resources, power and influence. And we see this pushback happening every single time progress is made, every time a group gets rights they were denied previously under false pretenses (racism or misogyny is a false pretense in my opinion). The problem here is that there is a hardcore group of people inside EA who do not relinquish competition from other people. Yeah, I know, EA is not supposed to be political. And I shall not be: my view is very pragmatic and I want the best people to do good.
I know that such discourse isn’t well-viewed in the community. And yet every day I see excellent people from the ‘diversity’ pool (understand women/non-white/non-STEM) being great at their new job, that they would not have gotten ten years ago before all the ‘political correctness’ talks. I intend to write a post giving figures as to why diversity is, in fact, necessary to keep producing the best people. And to give actionable answers. I expect pushback—that is the course of history :)
So, people. Think, I beg you. It is scary to have the feeling that while it is already hard to get an EA job, you have to compete with an always bigger pool of applicants because we give a chance to everyone. But if you care about impact, it is a reality everyone should accept.
I see that I am regularly downvoted, just like I was expecting, but I was expecting people to least answer in response, explaining their reasoning. Because it’s now easy to qssume that I am being downvoted by people who fear competition and refuse diversity for selfish reasons. Ockham razor here.
Edit: I see that either I’m not conveying my point well, or that people aren’t ready to hear this. I still think that this ‘pulling up the ladder behind’ thinking applies to OP, and if it’s offensive to say that, I’m sorry, and I mean it. I don’t see how it is offensive—they don’t know me, they don’t care about what I think of them, so if it’s not on a personal level, I don’t see how this is hurtful. If someone accuses me of being something I don’t think I am, I’ll brush it off—I know myself, and if it bothers me I’ll try to see if it’s because there is a parcel of truth or not at all. I don’t want to be mean or personal, I just think it’s a valuable thinking process to shed light on.
What doesn’t help is tthis feeling of everyone walking on eggshells when it comes to race or women, because one is afraid to say the wrong things/think that approaching these topics is useless and overrated. Even in our EA group which is probably one of the most progressive on earth about these issues, I know people feel these things I just talked about (they told me).
I might also be wrong and misunderstand completely what the author and his supporters think, and maybe all these people are very inclusive and care abot diversity. The focus on impact is absolutely understandable but it feels like an excuse—it doesn’t justify narrowing down and being elitist for me. Both aren’t incompatible, quite the opposite. But we’re not there yet. I don’t know what I should do—I still stand by my comments, but I don’t see the point of discussing this further, and I would not want people to think that I have stopped responding because I realize that I’m wrong but I don’t have the guts to acknowledge it. I just feel very, very tired of meeting hostility when I talk about these topics in this community.
This seems both pretty implausible to me and pretty rude. I’m not aware of any real evidence that this supposed ‘well-known’ mechanism is at play with Rishi, and it seems disrespectful to assume that ethnic minorities are not allowed to be conservatives out of genuine ideological agreement, rather than stockholm syndrome or survivor guilt.
It also seems like a story without an underlying phenomena to explain. Rishi’s cabinet, the body over whose makeup he has the most influence, is ~19% non-white if you exclude Rishi, basically exactly in-line with overall UK demographics (or higher if you include him); the Great Offices of State are 2⁄3 non-white (or 3⁄4 if you include him), significantly higher than the shadow cabinet.
So you cite stats of race, which I don’t believe at all is evidence of good practice. Its not about having a quota of a certain race. It’s about what you do with power. And so far Rishis cabinet has been having very conservative policies that do not benefit the majority of people who share the same skin color. It’s like saying that because you have cabinet full of women it’s diversity. Nope. Someone like Jacinda Ardern does act for women, but someone like Lizz Truss doesnt. It’s all about how you use power, not who uses power.
If people upvoted you more, would you be more inclined to think that you’re mistaken?
I think that I am being downvoted for reasons that do not prove that I am wrong, but that are based on a classical impulse that many people have on these topics. And the fact that only two people made an effort to comment on why they thought that I am wrong is evidence that people do not want to justify why they dont like my comment, which again is related to this impulse I was talking about.
The only response I got was that diversity in a cabinet means that diversity is present, but if diversity does not use power to act on the unfairness, it does not matter. I still fail to see how all this is convincing.
You have completely misunderstood my argument. You accused Rishi of ‘pulling up the ladder’ behind himself. The most recent part of the ‘ladder’ he climbed on the way to becoming Prime Minister was being in the cabinet, and he has complete control over the cabinet, so if he wanted to ‘pull up the ladder’ to try to prevent other ethnic minorities from becoming PM in the future the obvious thing for him to do would be to not choose them for these roles. However, this prediction of your claim is false, because he did choose them at rates equal or higher than you’d expect based on overall demographics. In fact I do not see any evidence he is trying to ‘pull up the ladder’ in order to fit in; you just don’t like conservative policies.
My point was that it’s not because rishi is in power that he will implement policy in favour of diversity. Actually he stays in the conservative lane that is factually detrimental to diversity (least wealthy populations). Rishi’s agenda is : 1) cutting taxes 2) cutting NHS for long-term disabilities and cutting social allowance for NHS 3) Reduce public spending and implement more austerity politics 4)harsher policies for small boats. Just like Priti Patel and Suella Braveman.
This is very much in line with Truss, Johnson and all conservative ministers. So him being from a different racial background doesn’t influence at all the way he uses his power. He rules as a conservative, for the upper class. Rishi’s main interest has nothing to do with his diversity background but rather the economic class to which he now belongs. The author of the post has now reached a good stage in EA, but he wants to narrow EA, which means that even less people from diverse background will be able to com
Not sure if I understand your point correctly, but I reckon you don’t need to think Sunak has a “take me in, but don’t let anyone enter after me” mindset to understand his policies. He is a conservative, and enacts conservative policies—it seems like that is enough to explain it?
Or do you think that, even though he is a conservative, he as a person of Indian descent should understand that conservative policies are in fact harmful to minorities, and therefore not enact them?
Hi—thanks for engaging so thoroughly with the post, and for caring about our shared interest in diversity and inclusion within EA.
lol same.
2.
I do want to point out that I don’t think I stated my own position on this topic anywhere. A reason for the post generally focusing more on the global approach to EA community building is because the status quo is to accept that narrowly focused community building (at top universities, and rich/influential cities like London and SFO) is valuable, and I think the case for global community building hasn’t been made as explicitly as the case for community building at top universities has been, for example.
3.
Trying to charitably restate what I think you meant in point 1: In my post I express some doubt about my own value or belonging in the US EA community, and you’ve combined that with the aforementioned perception that I am against diversity and inclusion (because you think I support the ‘narrow’ version of community building) and suggested that this might be an example of the ‘pulling the ladder up from behind me’ phenomenon, which might generally be seen as part of many factors which affect underrepresentation in hierarchies.
How I can’t help but reading your point 1: you don’t know anything about me, or any of the work I have/haven’t done to try help ‘promote’ other EA’s from underrepresented groups over the past 5 years, but you’ve decided to try psychoanalyse me and then evoke the metaphor of me deliberately preventing others from succeeding. Whether or not this was your intention, I think other people have also interpreted your point in this way (an odhominem attack), which might explain the downvoting.
4.
I think this point is pointing to a point which I have maybe under-explained or poorly articulated. You are correct in the example you’re pointing out—those people would bring valuable skills and insights into UN in the context of working on local development projects. But I don’t think EA is like the UN in this case, I think EA could be explained (from a narrow EA point of view) as a movement of exceptionally wealthy and privileged people, for exceptionally wealthy and privileged people, to try and do the most good that they can. In this case, even though people from all over the world might bring unique and underrepresented perspectives to the table, the question is “how are these perspectives/experiences going to help with this specific project (of EA)?”. Specifically in the context of EA community building, if one thinks that the purpose of community building is to attract/retain/find/train the most wealthy and influential people in the world in order to solve the most pressing issues facing current and future generations, then I don’t find it convincing that we should be prioritising the ‘global EA’ model that I described in the post. That’s mainly the point I’d like decision makers in the community building space to address/clarify.
5.
I think you might just have a fundamental disagreement with people who think about justice and/or EA in a utilitarian way? If, from my perspective, EA is movement predicated on the acceptance that we have far too few resources to solve the worlds problems, and that we should try and allocate the resources we do have such that we produce the best outcomes for as many people (or to the highest degree) possible; then I don’t think that taking our resources and sharing them equally amongst everyone who wants some of them is the morally right thing to do, because I don’t think theres a reasonable argument for that likely producing the best outcomes.
well hm you’re probably underrating the degree to which people don’t like possibility of being held to a lower standard, feeling like it’s condescending, etc. when there’s stated adjustments for demographic representation. (perhaps polgar sisters is the example that’s close to my fingertips recently, but if you go to enough professional conferences or talk to enough people it doesn’t take long to run into some minority rolling their eyes at the inclusion effort).
I mean people have been telling me that my immutable characteristics put me on thin ice cuz everyone’s bored by cringefail whitemales for as long as I can remember, and it pretty much always makes me go “fine I’ll just be more clever or work harder”, which is probably a habit that’s been good for me if you think about it cuz it leads to me cultivating a higher standard for myself, lmao!
So you don’t even question the assumption that you are supposed to work harder because of your immutable characteristics, and that you find it normal to be pinned down twice harder because of them than any mediocre white male? Doesn’t seem very constructive to me, and again, it’s this ‘Ill get better myself and won’t care to challenge the norms for others’ mindset that is the reason why minorities keep being treated the way they are.