Has anyone actually talked to conservatives* about EA?

I'm a conservative EA who's discussed EA at length with other conservatives.

For context, my conservative friends and I were born and raised in the comfortable left-wing community of Brookline, Massachusetts. I went to a very non-elite state school. One of the friends in the group I discuss here goes to military school and has an eye on a longer term political career.

Things my conservative friends (and I) like about EA:

• The philosophy of choosing to make important life choices in a way which rigorously adheres to one's ethical principles.
• Many religions mandate tithes (portions of one's income to be given to the poor), so my conservative friends see earning to give as complementary towards both secular and religious morality.
• EA thought tends to regard solving problems like racism, sexism, and homophobia to be far less marginally impactful than poverty, malnutrition, and disease. Conservatives tend to believe that the former social issues occupy far too large a space in the American mind.
• Liberal democracy is hailed by both EAs and (in the classical sense) conservatives.
• The ability of EAs to talk to people on both sides of the political aisle without making emotional arguments, accusing the other side (conservatives) of disingenuousness, or behaving uncivilly. In my personal experience, these behaviors are shockingly common from the general population towards conservatives, but I've never had a fellow EA act that way towards me.
• At the risk of repeating myself, rationality! My anecdotal experience is that those with unpopular opinions on contentious issues have often thought deeply about the issue at hand before coming to a conclusion, whereas it's easy to absorb and echo a popular opinion without thinking it through. For nearly all Western universities, conservative students are in the minority, and having a discussion with a left-wing peer who's spent substantial time thinking their ideology through is a huge breath of fresh air.

Things my conservative friends dislike about EA:

• They're typically meat lovers XD
• There are libertarian EAs, but the consequentialist core of much of EA thought disagrees with the idea that classical liberal principles are conclusively true. For example, one could construct a consequentialist hypothetical where restricting freedom of speech would be the right thing to do to maximize happiness, even if one believes that freedom of speech is in general an extremely important principle.
• Conservatism tends to prioritize classically liberal principles and traditional institutions, which broadly tends towards a deontological ethical philosophy rather than a consequentialist one.
• EA does have respect for institutions, but I think it's fair to say that the conservative prior on the value of institutions is greater than the EA prior.
• There are some liberal policies that are difficult to avoid explicitly endorsing as an EA; for example, increasing foreign aid, socializing healthcare, and increasing environmental protections. This isn't something my conservative friends "dislike" about EA per se (as we're well-conditioned to avoid disliking somebody just because of their political views), but it is an ideological hurdle to deal with for a conservative trying to take on an EA mindset.
• There's an undercurrent in liberal thinking where it's assumed that conservatives are at the very least ignorant and at the most acting in bad faith. EAs are quite good at avoiding that for the most part, but it does sometimes seep in, and it's frankly awful for discourse and doesn't help anybody.
• There aren't any prominent conservative EAs (or at least none that I've heard of). As a result, EA thought tends to ignore conservative perspectives in general, even when (in my opinion as a conservative) they can be highly valuable. For example, I believe there's a seriously compelling argument that abortion should be considered an EA issue. (I've written my argument here [EDIT: This link was to a very early spill of thoughts / solicitation of feedback. DM if you'd like to see the current draft, which has progressed substantially.] if anybody would like to take a look. Please do comment as I'm highly interested in feedback!)

I am the president of the EA group at BYU-Idaho, which has been ranked by some sources as the #1 most conservative school in America. With that being said, nearly all of our 21 members are conservative, including myself. Our university is likewise a private religious institution, with the vast majority of students (~98%) professing devotion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Naturally, the tenets of Effective Altruism are seen more as a useful tool that empowers us as Christians to fulfill Jesus Christ's commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 22:39). The EA model for global health and poverty is therefor of especial interest to our members. 

Due to the nature of our conviction, EAs within our circle typically do not attach much weight to x-risk causes that would vastly reduce the human population and stifle the likelihood of intelligent life reforming (e.g., asteroids or super-volcanic eruptions).

 Additionally, though our faith demands the proper treatment of animals and contains a health code which limits our consumption of meat, few members from both our uni-group and the Church at large adhere to this precept. Surprisingly, we have seen several members of our EA group adopt a vegan or plant based lifestyle proceeding our discussions on animal rights/factory farming and how it  relates to our belief.

For sake of time, I'm afraid I cannot offer more information. If you would be interested in talking in person, possibly at an EAG conference or virtually, I would be happy to oblige. 

Meta point: The way this question is asked suggests that no one reading the Forum is conservative, which feels alienating.

My impression of the George Mason academics is that they lean conservative.

Another conservative message I have seen among EAs is a general anti-tax sentiment. This has included practical advice on promotion of donor-advised funds, a personal asset that serves to reduce taxes. The argument seems to be that an EA can better direct what would have been taxes to a high impact charity than the government would be able to spend it.

I believe my father qualifies as "conservative" (I don't have a clear definition for "conservative", and age is a confounding factor in this case, but that he was a Trump voter in 2020, generally opposes immigration, and loves meat indicate him as conservative), and have discussed EA ideals  and concepts with him at length over the span of several years. 

He supports altruism, and in general believes that altruistic practices  (he mainly discusses global health and development) could be more effective. On this note, he believes EA is "good". However, when considering longtermist causes / x-risk, he differs from what I believe to be the community consensus in that he believes nuclear risk and natural risks pose a greater threat than bioterrorism (nothing concerning lab leaks have been brought up) and risk from AI. 

I asked him if he believes he would have been part of EA had it existed when he was 15-25, and he replied that he might have in the context of global health and development. 

I would be interested in an extension question for this post: Have EAs asked their conservative family members or parents for their thoughts on EA or adjacent concepts?

We're going to need to start by defining what we mean by "conservative." Speaking as someone who was occasionally taunted as a "conservative" (despite having many relatively centrist views) by people in my college debate club, I think that many progressives either struggle or simply don't care to come up with fair definitions for what a conservative is.

But to be fair, I'm not sure even the average American conservative has a great sense of how to define conservativism.

Don't know if you want to include "podcast conversations" in your set here, but if you do:

Russ Roberts is fairly conservative, also seemed quite thoughtful and to have good epistemology, when I was listening to econtalk regularly (which hasn't been in a few years). He had a conversation with Bostrom, about AGI, which I thought went terribly (no good, bad bad bad). He also had a conversation with MacAskill, which I don't remember as well, but I have the general sense that it also didn't go super well. Maybe worth a re-listen. He's probably talked with some other major figures, if you go digging in the archives -- there have been a lot of development economists, some of whom are probably important to EA research.