An impression after skimming this post (not well thought through; do point out what I missed): Some of the tentative project ideas listed are oriented around extending EA’s reach via new like-minded groups who will share our values and strategies.
Sentences that seemed to be supporting this line of thinking:
… making it the case that all major decision makers (politicians, business leaders etc) use ‘will this most improve wellbeing over the long run?’ as their main decision criterion.
...So it’s important for us to find ways to make sure that wherever they work, people can still have a sense of being often around people with similar values and who help them figure out their path.
...One problem with area specific community building is that in order to be taken seriously and know enough to be helpful to people, you might yourself need to be doing object level work in the area.
I’m unsure how much I misinterpreted specific project ideas listed in this post.
Leaving that aside, I generally worry about encouraging further outreach focused on creating like-minded groups of influential professionals (and even more about encouraging initiators to focus their efforts on making such groups look ‘prestigious’). I expect that will discourage efforts in outreach to integrate importantly diverse backgrounds, approaches, and views. I would expect EA field builders to involve fewer of the specialists who developed their expertise inside a dissimilar context, take alternative approaches to understanding and navigating their field, or have insightful but different views that complement views held in EA.
A field builder who simply aims to increase EA’s influence over decisions made by professionals will tend to select for and socially reward members that line up with their values/cause prio/strategy as a default tactic, I think. Inversely, taking the tactic of connecting EAs who like to talk with other EAs who are climbing similar career ladders leads to those gathered themselves agreeing to and approving each other more for exerting influence in stereotypically EA ways. Such group dynamics can lead to a kind of impoverished homogenisation of common knowledge and values.
I imagine a corporate, academic, or bureaucratic decision maker getting involved in an EA-aligned group and consulting their collaborators on how to make an impact. Given that they’re surrounded by like-minded EAs, they may not become aware of shared blindspots in EA. Conversely, they’d less often reach out and listen attentively to outside stakeholders who can illuminate them on those blindspots.
Decision makers who lose touch with other important perspectives will no longer spot certain mistakes they might make, and may therefore become (even more) overconfident about certain ways of making impact on the world. This could lead to more ‘superficially EA-good’ large-scale decisions that actually negatively impact persons far removed from us.
In my opinion, it would be awesome if
along with existing field-building initiatives focused on expanding the influence of EA thought,
we encourage corresponding efforts to really get in touch and build shared understandings with specialised stakeholders (particularly, those with skin in the game) who have taken up complementary approaches and views to doing good in their field.
Some reasons:
Dedicated EA field builders seem to naturally incline towards type 1 efforts. Therefore, it’s extra important for strategic thinkers and leaders in the EA community to be deliberate and clear about encouraging type 2 efforts in the projects they advise.
1 is challenging to implement but EA field builders have been making steady progress in scaling up initiatives there (e.g. staff at Founder’s Pledge, Global Priorities Institute, Center for Human-Compatible AI).
2 seems much more challenging intellectually. They require us to build bridges that allow EA and non-EA-identifying organisations to complement each other: complex, nuanced perspectives that allow us to traverse between general EA principles and arguments, and the contextual awareness and domain-specific know-how (amongst others) of experienced specialists. I have difficulty recalling EA initiatives that were explicitly intended for coordinating type 2 efforts.
At this stage, I would honestly prefer if field builders start paying much deeper attention to 2. before they go out changing other people’s minds and the world. I’m not sure how much credence to put in this being a better course of action though. I have little experience reaching out to influential professionals myself. It also feels I’m speculating here on big implications in a way that seems unnecessary or exaggerated. I’d be curious to hear more nuanced arguments from an experienced field-builder.
An impression after skimming this post (not well thought through; do point out what I missed):
Some of the tentative project ideas listed are oriented around extending EA’s reach via new like-minded groups who will share our values and strategies.
Sentences that seemed to be supporting this line of thinking:
I’m unsure how much I misinterpreted specific project ideas listed in this post.
Leaving that aside, I generally worry about encouraging further outreach focused on creating like-minded groups of influential professionals (and even more about encouraging initiators to focus their efforts on making such groups look ‘prestigious’). I expect that will discourage efforts in outreach to integrate importantly diverse backgrounds, approaches, and views. I would expect EA field builders to involve fewer of the specialists who developed their expertise inside a dissimilar context, take alternative approaches to understanding and navigating their field, or have insightful but different views that complement views held in EA.
A field builder who simply aims to increase EA’s influence over decisions made by professionals will tend to select for and socially reward members that line up with their values/cause prio/strategy as a default tactic, I think. Inversely, taking the tactic of connecting EAs who like to talk with other EAs who are climbing similar career ladders leads to those gathered themselves agreeing to and approving each other more for exerting influence in stereotypically EA ways. Such group dynamics can lead to a kind of impoverished homogenisation of common knowledge and values.
I imagine a corporate, academic, or bureaucratic decision maker getting involved in an EA-aligned group and consulting their collaborators on how to make an impact. Given that they’re surrounded by like-minded EAs, they may not become aware of shared blindspots in EA. Conversely, they’d less often reach out and listen attentively to outside stakeholders who can illuminate them on those blindspots.
Decision makers who lose touch with other important perspectives will no longer spot certain mistakes they might make, and may therefore become (even more) overconfident about certain ways of making impact on the world. This could lead to more ‘superficially EA-good’ large-scale decisions that actually negatively impact persons far removed from us.
In my opinion, it would be awesome if
along with existing field-building initiatives focused on expanding the influence of EA thought,
we encourage corresponding efforts to really get in touch and build shared understandings with specialised stakeholders (particularly, those with skin in the game) who have taken up complementary approaches and views to doing good in their field.
Some reasons:
Dedicated EA field builders seem to naturally incline towards type 1 efforts. Therefore, it’s extra important for strategic thinkers and leaders in the EA community to be deliberate and clear about encouraging type 2 efforts in the projects they advise.
1 is challenging to implement but EA field builders have been making steady progress in scaling up initiatives there (e.g. staff at Founder’s Pledge, Global Priorities Institute, Center for Human-Compatible AI).
2 seems much more challenging intellectually. They require us to build bridges that allow EA and non-EA-identifying organisations to complement each other: complex, nuanced perspectives that allow us to traverse between general EA principles and arguments, and the contextual awareness and domain-specific know-how (amongst others) of experienced specialists. I have difficulty recalling EA initiatives that were explicitly intended for coordinating type 2 efforts.
At this stage, I would honestly prefer if field builders start paying much deeper attention to 2. before they go out changing other people’s minds and the world. I’m not sure how much credence to put in this being a better course of action though. I have little experience reaching out to influential professionals myself. It also feels I’m speculating here on big implications in a way that seems unnecessary or exaggerated. I’d be curious to hear more nuanced arguments from an experienced field-builder.