This is a crux. I acknowledge I probably share more values with a random EA than a random university student, but I don’t think that’s actually saying that much, and I believe there’s a lot of massively impactful difference in culture and values.
My best guess is something like a third of rationalists are also EAs, at least going by identification. (I’m being lazy for the moment and not cross checking “Identifies as Rationalist” against “Identifies as EA” but I can if you want me to and I’m like 85% sure the less-lazy check will bear that out.) My educated but irresponsible guess is something like 10% of EAs are rationalists. Last time I did a straw poll at an ACX meetup, more than half the people attending were also EAs. Whatever the differences are, it’s not stopping a substantial overlap on membership, and I don’t think that’s just at the level of random members but includes a lot of the notable members.
I’d be pretty open to a definition of ‘rationalist’ that was about more than self-identification, but to my knowledge we don’t have a workable definition better than that. It’s plausible to me that the differences matter as you lean on them a lot, but I think it’s more likely the two groups are aligned for most purposes.
Thanks for the data! I agree there’s a fair bit of overlap in clusters of people.
Two points:
I am talking about the cultural values more than simply the individuals. I think a person’s environment really brings very different things out of them. The same person(s) working at Amazon, DC politics, and a global-health non-profit, will get invited to live out different values and build quite different identities for themselves. The same person in-person and on Twitter can also behave as quite different people. I think LessWrong has a distinct culture from the EA Forum, and I think EAG has a distinct culture from ACX meetups.
Not every person in a scene strongly embodies the ideals and aspirations of that scene. Many people who come to rationalist meetups I have yet to get on the same page about with lots of values e.g. I still somewhat regularly have to give arguments against various reasons for why people sometimes endorse self-deception, even to folks who have been around for many years. The ideals of EA and LW are different.
So even though the two scenes have overlap in people, I still think the scenes live out and aspire to different values and different cultures, and this explains a lot of difference in outcomes.
My best guess is something like a third of rationalists are also EAs, at least going by identification. (I’m being lazy for the moment and not cross checking “Identifies as Rationalist” against “Identifies as EA” but I can if you want me to and I’m like 85% sure the less-lazy check will bear that out.) My educated but irresponsible guess is something like 10% of EAs are rationalists. Last time I did a straw poll at an ACX meetup, more than half the people attending were also EAs. Whatever the differences are, it’s not stopping a substantial overlap on membership, and I don’t think that’s just at the level of random members but includes a lot of the notable members.
I’d be pretty open to a definition of ‘rationalist’ that was about more than self-identification, but to my knowledge we don’t have a workable definition better than that. It’s plausible to me that the differences matter as you lean on them a lot, but I think it’s more likely the two groups are aligned for most purposes.
Thanks for the data! I agree there’s a fair bit of overlap in clusters of people.
Two points:
I am talking about the cultural values more than simply the individuals. I think a person’s environment really brings very different things out of them. The same person(s) working at Amazon, DC politics, and a global-health non-profit, will get invited to live out different values and build quite different identities for themselves. The same person in-person and on Twitter can also behave as quite different people. I think LessWrong has a distinct culture from the EA Forum, and I think EAG has a distinct culture from ACX meetups.
Not every person in a scene strongly embodies the ideals and aspirations of that scene. Many people who come to rationalist meetups I have yet to get on the same page about with lots of values e.g. I still somewhat regularly have to give arguments against various reasons for why people sometimes endorse self-deception, even to folks who have been around for many years. The ideals of EA and LW are different.
So even though the two scenes have overlap in people, I still think the scenes live out and aspire to different values and different cultures, and this explains a lot of difference in outcomes.