Thank you Aaron for taking the time to write this detailed and thoughtful comment to my post!
I’ll start with saying that I pretty much agree with everything you say, especially in your final remarks—that we should be really receptive to what people actually want and advise them accordingly, and maybe try to gently nudge them into taking a more open-minded general-impact-oriented approach (but not try to force it on them if they don’t want to).
I also totally agree that most EA orgs are doing a fantastic job at exploring diverse causes and ways to improve the world, and that the EA movement is very open-minded to accepting new causes in the presence of good evidence.
To be clear, I don’t criticize specific EA orgs. The thing I do criticize is pretty subtle, and refers more to the EA community itself—sometimes to individuals in the community, but mostly to our collective attitude and the atmospheres we create as groups.
When I say “I think we need to be more open to diverse causes”, it seems that your main answer is “present me with good evidence that a new cause is promising and I’ll support it”, which is totally fair. I think this is the right attitude for an EA to have, but it doesn’t exactly address what I allude to. I don’t ask EAs to start contributing to new unproven causes themselves, but rather that they be open to others contributing to them.
I agree with you that most EAs would not confront a cancer researcher and blame her of doing something un-EA-like (and I presume many would even be kind and approach her with curiosity about the motives for her choice). But in the end, I think it is still very likely she would nonetheless feel somewhat judged. Because even if every person she meets at EA Global tries to nudge her only very gently (“Oh, that’s interesting! So why did you decide to work on cancer? Have you considered pandemic preparedness? Do you think cancer is more impactful?”), those repeating comments can accumulate into a strong feeling of unease. To be clear, I’m not blaming any of the imaginary people who met the imaginary cancer researcher at the imaginary EAG conference for having done anything wrong, because each one of them tried to be kind and welcoming. It’s only their collective action that made her feel off.
I think the EA community should be more welcoming to people who want to operate in areas we don’t consider particularly promising, even if they don’t present convincing arguments for their decisions.
In the end, I think it is still very likely she would nonetheless feel somewhat judged. Because even if every person she meets at EA Global tries to nudge her only very gently (“Oh, that’s interesting! So why did you decide to work on cancer? Have you considered pandemic preparedness? Do you think cancer is more impactful?”), those repeating comments can accumulate into a strong feeling of unease.
I like this example! It captures something I can more easily imagine happening (regularly) in the community.
One proposal for how to avoid this collective action problem would be for people to ask the same sorts of questions, no matter what area someone works on (assuming they don’t know enough to have more detailed/specific questions).
For example, instead of:
Have you considered X?
Do you think your thing, Y, is more impactful than X?
You’d have questions like:
What led you to work on Y?
And then, if they say something about impact, “Were there any other paths you considered? How did you choose Y in the end?”
What should someone not involved in Y know about it?
What are your goals for this work? How is it going so far?
What are your goals for this event? (If it’s a major event and not e.g. a dinner party)
These should work about equally well for people in most fields, and I think that “discussing the value/promise of an area” conversations will typically go better than “discussing whether a new area ‘beats’ another area by various imperfect measures”. We still have to take the second step at some point as a community, but I’d rather leave that to funders, job-seekers, and Forum commentators.
I think the EA community should be more welcoming to people who want to operate in areas we don’t consider particularly promising, even if they don’t present convincing arguments for their decisions.
Depends on the context.
Plenty of people in the EA space are doing their own thing (disconnected from standard paths) but still provide interesting commentary, ask good questions, etc. I have no idea what some Forum users do for work, but I don’t feel the need to ask. If they’re a good fit for the culture and the community seems better for their presence, I’m happy.
The difficulty comes when certain decisions have to be made — whose work to fund, which people are likely to get a lot of benefit from EA Global, etc. At that point, you need solid evidence or a strong argument that your work is likely to have a big impact.
In casual settings, the former “vibe” seems better — but sometimes, I think that people who thrive in casual spaces get frustrated when they “hit a wall” in the latter situations (not getting into a conference, not getting a grant, etc.)
In the end, EA can’t really incorporate an area without having a good reason to do so. I’d be satisfied if we could split “social EA” from “business EA” in terms of how much evidence and justification people are asked for, but we should be transparent about the difference between enjoying the community and looking for career or charity support.
I like your suggestions for questions one could ask a stranger at an EA event!
About “social EA” vs. “business EA”, I think I’d make a slightly different distinction. If you ask for someone else’s (or some org’s) time or money, then of course you need to come up with good explanations for why the thing you are offering (whether it is your employment or some project) is worthwhile. It’s not even a unique feature of EA. But, if you are just doing your own thing and not asking for anyone’s time or money, and just want to enjoy the company of other EAs, then this is the case where I think the EA community should be more welcoming and be happy to just let you be.
Thank you Aaron for taking the time to write this detailed and thoughtful comment to my post!
I’ll start with saying that I pretty much agree with everything you say, especially in your final remarks—that we should be really receptive to what people actually want and advise them accordingly, and maybe try to gently nudge them into taking a more open-minded general-impact-oriented approach (but not try to force it on them if they don’t want to).
I also totally agree that most EA orgs are doing a fantastic job at exploring diverse causes and ways to improve the world, and that the EA movement is very open-minded to accepting new causes in the presence of good evidence.
To be clear, I don’t criticize specific EA orgs. The thing I do criticize is pretty subtle, and refers more to the EA community itself—sometimes to individuals in the community, but mostly to our collective attitude and the atmospheres we create as groups.
When I say “I think we need to be more open to diverse causes”, it seems that your main answer is “present me with good evidence that a new cause is promising and I’ll support it”, which is totally fair. I think this is the right attitude for an EA to have, but it doesn’t exactly address what I allude to. I don’t ask EAs to start contributing to new unproven causes themselves, but rather that they be open to others contributing to them.
I agree with you that most EAs would not confront a cancer researcher and blame her of doing something un-EA-like (and I presume many would even be kind and approach her with curiosity about the motives for her choice). But in the end, I think it is still very likely she would nonetheless feel somewhat judged. Because even if every person she meets at EA Global tries to nudge her only very gently (“Oh, that’s interesting! So why did you decide to work on cancer? Have you considered pandemic preparedness? Do you think cancer is more impactful?”), those repeating comments can accumulate into a strong feeling of unease. To be clear, I’m not blaming any of the imaginary people who met the imaginary cancer researcher at the imaginary EAG conference for having done anything wrong, because each one of them tried to be kind and welcoming. It’s only their collective action that made her feel off.
I think the EA community should be more welcoming to people who want to operate in areas we don’t consider particularly promising, even if they don’t present convincing arguments for their decisions.
I like this example! It captures something I can more easily imagine happening (regularly) in the community.
One proposal for how to avoid this collective action problem would be for people to ask the same sorts of questions, no matter what area someone works on (assuming they don’t know enough to have more detailed/specific questions).
For example, instead of:
Have you considered X?
Do you think your thing, Y, is more impactful than X?
You’d have questions like:
What led you to work on Y?
And then, if they say something about impact, “Were there any other paths you considered? How did you choose Y in the end?”
What should someone not involved in Y know about it?
What are your goals for this work? How is it going so far?
What are your goals for this event? (If it’s a major event and not e.g. a dinner party)
These should work about equally well for people in most fields, and I think that “discussing the value/promise of an area” conversations will typically go better than “discussing whether a new area ‘beats’ another area by various imperfect measures”. We still have to take the second step at some point as a community, but I’d rather leave that to funders, job-seekers, and Forum commentators.
Depends on the context.
Plenty of people in the EA space are doing their own thing (disconnected from standard paths) but still provide interesting commentary, ask good questions, etc. I have no idea what some Forum users do for work, but I don’t feel the need to ask. If they’re a good fit for the culture and the community seems better for their presence, I’m happy.
The difficulty comes when certain decisions have to be made — whose work to fund, which people are likely to get a lot of benefit from EA Global, etc. At that point, you need solid evidence or a strong argument that your work is likely to have a big impact.
In casual settings, the former “vibe” seems better — but sometimes, I think that people who thrive in casual spaces get frustrated when they “hit a wall” in the latter situations (not getting into a conference, not getting a grant, etc.)
In the end, EA can’t really incorporate an area without having a good reason to do so. I’d be satisfied if we could split “social EA” from “business EA” in terms of how much evidence and justification people are asked for, but we should be transparent about the difference between enjoying the community and looking for career or charity support.
I like your suggestions for questions one could ask a stranger at an EA event!
About “social EA” vs. “business EA”, I think I’d make a slightly different distinction. If you ask for someone else’s (or some org’s) time or money, then of course you need to come up with good explanations for why the thing you are offering (whether it is your employment or some project) is worthwhile. It’s not even a unique feature of EA. But, if you are just doing your own thing and not asking for anyone’s time or money, and just want to enjoy the company of other EAs, then this is the case where I think the EA community should be more welcoming and be happy to just let you be.