During EA Global San Francisco 2017, there was a panel discussion called "Celebrating Failed Projects." At one point, Nathan Labenz, the moderator, asks, "What are some projects that you guys are harboring in the backs of your respective minds that you'd love to see people undertake even if, and maybe especially where, the chance of ultimate success might be pretty low?" In response, Anna Salamon says, "There's a set of books that pretty often change people's lives, especially 18 year old type people's lives, hopefully in good directions. I think it would be lovely to make a list of five of those books and make a list of all the smart kids and mail the books to the smart kids. This has been on the list of obvious things to do for the last ten years but somehow nobody has ever done it. I didn't do it. I don't know. I really wish someone would do it. I think it would be really high impact."
It seems that the following five books are popular in the EA community:
1. Doing Good Better by William MacAskill
2. 80,000 Hours by Benjamin Todd and the 80,000 Hours Team
3. The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer
4. Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
5. Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
However, I doubt that Salamon meant to limit the selection to books related to effective altruism. If you could choose five books on any topic, which five would you choose?
Sorry I should've been clearer. I meant the socialist argument as used in criticisms of EAs by Leiter and Srinivasan etc. They talk as though EAs are missing something painfully obvious by not advocating for the destruction of extensive private property ownership. This shows a lack of epistemic awareness.
Leiter is an ideologue and a bully, so that wouldn't surprise me. I think Srinivasan is a careful thinker, though. In fact she believes that because all of our beliefs are caused by antecedent factors outside of our control, that we cannot fully and sincerely commit to any belief. She has a view that is not unlike Rorty's ironism. So she's definitely 'epistemically aware'.
And the same is true, in my opinion, in the opposite direction: the EA community is extremely homogeneous. Its members generally share the same utilitarian, rationalist, technocratic, neoclassical worldview.