Agree with the spirit—there is too much herding, and I would love for Schubert’s distinctions to be core concepts. However, I think the problem you describe appears in the gap between the core orgs and the community, and might be pretty hard to fix as a result.
What material implies that EA is only about ~4 things?
the revealed preferences of what people say they’re working on, the distribution of object-level post tags
What emphasises cause divergence and personal fit?
80k have their top 7 of course, but the full list of recommended ones has 23
Personal fit is the second thing they raise, after importance
New causes, independent thinking, outreach, cause X, and ‘question > ideology’ is a major theme at every EAG and (by eye) in about a fifth of the top-voted Forum posts.
So maybe limited room for improvements to communication? Since it’s already pretty clear.
Intro material has to mention some examples, and only a couple in any depth. How should we pick examples? Impact has to come first. Could be better to not always use the same 4 examples, but instead pick the top 3 by your own lights and then draw randomly from the top 20.
Also, I’ve always thought of cause neutrality as conditional—“if you’re able to pivot, and if you want to do the most good, what should you do?” and this is emphasised in plenty of places. (i.e. Personal fit and meeting people where they are by default.) But if people are taking it as an unconditional imperative then that needs attention.
Agree with the spirit—there is too much herding, and I would love for Schubert’s distinctions to be core concepts. However, I think the problem you describe appears in the gap between the core orgs and the community, and might be pretty hard to fix as a result.
What material implies that EA is only about ~4 things?
the Funds
semi-official intro talks and Fellowship syllabi
the landing page has 3 main causes and mentions 6 more
the revealed preferences of what people say they’re working on, the distribution of object-level post tags
What emphasises cause divergence and personal fit?
80k have their top 7 of course, but the full list of recommended ones has 23
Personal fit is the second thing they raise, after importance
New causes, independent thinking, outreach, cause X, and ‘question > ideology’ is a major theme at every EAG and (by eye) in about a fifth of the top-voted Forum posts.
So maybe limited room for improvements to communication? Since it’s already pretty clear.
Intro material has to mention some examples, and only a couple in any depth. How should we pick examples? Impact has to come first. Could be better to not always use the same 4 examples, but instead pick the top 3 by your own lights and then draw randomly from the top 20.
Also, I’ve always thought of cause neutrality as conditional—“if you’re able to pivot, and if you want to do the most good, what should you do?” and this is emphasised in plenty of places. (i.e. Personal fit and meeting people where they are by default.) But if people are taking it as an unconditional imperative then that needs attention.