There are lots of of good points here. I could say more but here are just a few comments:
The obsession over intelligence is counterproductive. I worry a lot that EA is becoming too insular and that money and opportunities are being given out based largely on a perception of how intelligent people are and the degree to which people signal in-group status. The result is organizations like MIRI and Leverage staffed by autists that have burned through lots of money and human resources while only producing papers of marginal value. The fact they don’t even bother to get most papers peer reviewed is really bad. Yes, peer review sucks and is a lot of work, but every paper I had peer reviewed was improved by the process. Additionally, peer review and being able to publish in a good journal is a useful (although noisy) signal to outsiders and funders that your work is at least novel and not highly derivative.
The focus on intelligence can be very off-putting and I suspect is a reason many people are not involved in EA. I know one person who said they are not involved because they find it too intimidating. While I have not experienced problems at EA events, I have experienced a few times where people were either directly or indirectly questioning my intelligence at LessWrong events, and I found it off-putting. In one case, someone said “I’m trying to figure out how intelligent you are”. I remember times I had trouble keeping up with face-paced EA conversations. There’s been some conversations I’ve seen which appeared to be a bunch of people trying to impress and signal how intelligent they are rather than doing something constructive.
Age diversity is also an issue. Orgs that have similar values, like humanist orgs or skeptics orgs, have much greater age diversity. I think this is related to the focus on intelligence, especially superficial markers like verbosity and fluency/fast-talking, and the dismissal of skeptics and critics (people who are older tend to have developed a more critical/skeptical take on things due to greater life experience).
There are lots of of good points here. I could say more but here are just a few comments:
The obsession over intelligence is counterproductive. I worry a lot that EA is becoming too insular and that money and opportunities are being given out based largely on a perception of how intelligent people are and the degree to which people signal in-group status. The result is organizations like MIRI and Leverage staffed by autists that have burned through lots of money and human resources while only producing papers of marginal value. The fact they don’t even bother to get most papers peer reviewed is really bad. Yes, peer review sucks and is a lot of work, but every paper I had peer reviewed was improved by the process. Additionally, peer review and being able to publish in a good journal is a useful (although noisy) signal to outsiders and funders that your work is at least novel and not highly derivative.
The focus on intelligence can be very off-putting and I suspect is a reason many people are not involved in EA. I know one person who said they are not involved because they find it too intimidating. While I have not experienced problems at EA events, I have experienced a few times where people were either directly or indirectly questioning my intelligence at LessWrong events, and I found it off-putting. In one case, someone said “I’m trying to figure out how intelligent you are”. I remember times I had trouble keeping up with face-paced EA conversations. There’s been some conversations I’ve seen which appeared to be a bunch of people trying to impress and signal how intelligent they are rather than doing something constructive.
Age diversity is also an issue. Orgs that have similar values, like humanist orgs or skeptics orgs, have much greater age diversity. I think this is related to the focus on intelligence, especially superficial markers like verbosity and fluency/fast-talking, and the dismissal of skeptics and critics (people who are older tend to have developed a more critical/skeptical take on things due to greater life experience).