I was involved in the EA movement from around 2014 in Sydney Australia, which I expect is similar to the UK as you mentioned (but all the same, the UK & Australia were and are major centres for the EA movement and our lack of interaction with the Rationalist community in those early days should be noted).
From my recollection, in those early days the local EA Sydney community would co-host events with the local Less Wrong Rationality, Transhumanist, and the Science Party groups just to get the numbers up for events. So yes, the Rationalists did mix with EA, but their contribution was on-par with the Transhumanists.
I don’t recall rationality being a major part of major EA literature at the time (The Most Good You Can Do, The Life You Can Save). Even utilitarianism was downplayed as being fundamental to being an EA. It was later on that Rationality became more influential.
Sorry for sarcasm, but what about returning to the same level of non-involvement and non-interaction between EA and Rationality as you describe was happening in Sydney? I.e. EA events are just co-hosted with LW Rationality and Transhumanism, and the level of Rationality idea non-influence is kept on par with Transhumanism?
So on the object level I think we all agree: ea Sydney was having cohosted events with the rationalists in 2014.
It just seems odd to me to describe this as the influence not being important. But this might be that we simply have a difference about what ‘important influence’ implies.
I was involved in the EA movement from around 2014 in Sydney Australia, which I expect is similar to the UK as you mentioned (but all the same, the UK & Australia were and are major centres for the EA movement and our lack of interaction with the Rationalist community in those early days should be noted).
From my recollection, in those early days the local EA Sydney community would co-host events with the local Less Wrong Rationality, Transhumanist, and the Science Party groups just to get the numbers up for events. So yes, the Rationalists did mix with EA, but their contribution was on-par with the Transhumanists.
I don’t recall rationality being a major part of major EA literature at the time (The Most Good You Can Do, The Life You Can Save). Even utilitarianism was downplayed as being fundamental to being an EA. It was later on that Rationality became more influential.
Sorry for sarcasm, but what about returning to the same level of non-involvement and non-interaction between EA and Rationality as you describe was happening in Sydney? I.e. EA events are just co-hosted with LW Rationality and Transhumanism, and the level of Rationality idea non-influence is kept on par with Transhumanism?
So on the object level I think we all agree: ea Sydney was having cohosted events with the rationalists in 2014.
It just seems odd to me to describe this as the influence not being important. But this might be that we simply have a difference about what ‘important influence’ implies.
I don’t think Sydney has ever been a major centre for the EA movement, and it’s not a very good proxy for the culture/s of major EA hubs.