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SaidAchmiz comments on 2014 Survey of Effective Altruists - Less Wrong
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I've now checked out the survey, and have a couple of comments (which I put into the comments field and am reposting here). #1 is important, #2 less so:
On moral philosophy: "Consequentialist/utilitarian" should be broken up into something like "Utilitarian" and "Other consequentialist (not utilitarian)", because I am a consequentialist and (probably) not a utilitarian, and that disagreement is one of my main points of contention with the EA movement.
I had no idea how to answer the "political views" question. Are these positions ("left", "centre", etc.) supposed to be on the American (U.S.) political spectrum? That'd be my default assumption, but the British/Canadian spelling suggests otherwise... in any case, at least offer as many options as e.g. the Lesswrong survey did.
I think it'd be interesting to know more about the specific ethical views of ethically-minded EAs, but the majority of EAs are not well-versed enough to make Utilitarianism vs. Other Consequentialism distinctions. It's good to make a big survey like this as easy to fill out as possible.
Same thing about the "political views" point, although there are standards for left vs. right across countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics
I think that's a problem! (I discuss in this comment some reasons why.)
Whether or not it's a problem, a survey is not a good place to address it. You have to ask questions people will be able to easily answer if you want to get useful data.
That's true, but it is also an inherently problematic approach if (as will almost certainly be the case when it comes to issues of ethics, politics, etc.) the things you really want to know are not easily elicited by questions that people will be able to easily answer, and vice versa — the questions that people can easily answer don't actually tell you what you really want to know about those people's views, attitudes, etc.
In any case, what I meant wasn't that "EAs are not well-versed enough in moral philosophy" is a problem for the survey — what I meant was that it's a problem for the EA movement.