Most of us had a default attitude of skepticism and uncertainty towards what EA orgs thought about things. When I talk to EA student group members now, I don’t think I get the sense that people are as skeptical or independent-thinking.
I’ve heard this impression from several people, but it’s unclear to me whether EAs have become more deferential, although it is my impression that many EAs are currently highly deferential. It seems quite plausible to me that it is merely more apparent that EAs are highly deferential right now, because the ‘official EA consensus’ (i.e. longtermism) is more readily apparent. I think this largely explains the dynamics highlighted in this post and in the comments. (Another possibility is simply that newer EAs are more likely to defer than veteran EAs and as EA is still growing rapidly, we constantly get higher %s of non-veteran EAs, who are more likely to defer. I actually think the real picture is a bit more complicated than this, partly because I think moderately engaged and invested EAs are more likely to defer than the newest EAs, but we don’t need to get into that here).
My impression is that EA culture and other features of the EA community implicitly encourage deference very heavily (despite the fact that many senior EAs would, in the abstract, like more independent thinking from EAs). In terms of social approval and respect, as well as access to EA resources (like jobs or grants), deference to expert EA opinion (both in the sense of sharing the same views and in the sense of directly showing that you defer to senior EA experts) seem pretty essential.
I have the sense that people would now view it as bad behavior to tell people that you think they’re making a terrible choice to donate to AMF
Relatedly, my purely anecdotal impression is basically the opposite here. As EA has professionalised I think there are more explicit norms about “niceness”, but I think it’s never been clearer or more acceptable to communicate implicitly or explicitly, that you think that people who support AMF (or other near-termist) probably just ‘don’t get’ longtermism and aren’t worth engaging with.
I’ve heard this impression from several people, but it’s unclear to me whether EAs have become more deferential, although it is my impression that many EAs are currently highly deferential
Here’s what leads me to think EA seems more deferential now.
I spent a lot of time with the Stanford EA club in 2015 and 2016, and was close friends with many of the people there. We related to EA very differently to how I relate to EA now, and how most newer/younger EAs I talk to seem to relate to it.
The common attitude was something like “we’re utilitarians, and we want to do as much good as we can. EA has some interesting people and interesting ideas in it. However, it’s not clear who we can trust; there’s lots of fiery debate about cause prioritization, and we just don’t at all know whether we should donate to AMF or the Humane League or MIRI. There are EA orgs like CEA, 80K, MIRI, GiveWell, but it’s not clear which of those people we should trust, given that the things they say don’t always make sense to us, and they have different enough bottom line beliefs that some of them must be wrong.”
It’s much rarer nowadays for me to hear people have an attitude where they’re wholeheartedly excited about utilitarianism but openly skeptical to the EA “establishment”.
Part of this is that I think the arguments around cause prioritization are much better understood and less contentious now.
I think it’s never been clearer or more acceptable to communicate implicitly or explicitly, that you think that people who support AMF (or other near-termist) probably just ‘don’t get’ longtermism and aren’t worth engaging with.
I feel like there are many fewer EA forum posts and facebook posts where people argue back and forth about whether to donate to AMF or more speculative things than there used to be.
The common attitude was something like “we’re utilitarians, and we want to do as much good as we can. EA has some interesting people and interesting ideas in it. However, it’s not clear who we can trust; there’s lots of fiery debate about cause prioritization, and we just don’t at all know whether we should donate to AMF or the Humane League or MIRI. There are EA orgs like CEA, 80K, MIRI, GiveWell, but it’s not clear which of those people we should trust, given that the things they say don’t always make sense to us, and they have different enough bottom line beliefs that some of them must be wrong.” It’s much rarer nowadays for me to hear people have an attitude where they’re wholeheartedly excited about utilitarianism but openly skeptical to the EA “establishment”.
I actually agree that there seems to have been some shift roughly along these lines.
My view is roughly that EAs were equally disposed to be deferential then as they are now (if there were a clear EA consensus then, most of these EAs would have deferred to it, as they do now), but that “because the ‘official EA consensus’ (i.e. longtermism) is more readily apparent” now, people’s disposition to defer is more apparent.
So I would agree that some EAs were actually more directly engaged in thinking about fundamental EA prioritisation because they did not see an EA position that they could defer to at all. But other EAs I think were deferring to those they perceived as EA experts back then, just as they are now, it’s just that they were deferring to different EA experts than other EAs. For example, I think earlier years many EAs thought that Giving What We Can (previously an exclusively poverty org, of course) and GiveWell, were the EA experts, and meanwhile there were some ‘crazy’ people (MIRI and LessWrongers) who were outside the EA mainstream. I imagine this perspective was more common outside the Bay Area.
I feel like there are many fewer EA forum posts and facebook posts where people argue back and forth about whether to donate to AMF or more speculative things than there used to be.
Agreed, but I can’t remember the last time I saw someone try to argue that you should donate to AMF rather than longtermism. I’ve seen more posts/comments/discussions along the lines of ‘Are you aware of any EA arguments against longtermism?’ Clearly there are still lots of EAs who donate to AMF and support near-termism (cause prioritisation, donation data), but I think they are mostly keeping quiet. Whenever I do see near-termism come up, people don’t seem afraid to communicate that they think that it is obviously indefensible, or that they think even a third-rate longtermist intervention is probably incomparably better than AMF because at least it’s longtermist.
My view is roughly that EAs were equally disposed to be deferential then as they are now (if there were a clear EA consensus then, most of these EAs would have deferred to it, as they do now), but that “because the ‘official EA consensus’ (i.e. longtermism) is more readily apparent” now, people’s disposition to defer is more apparent.
This is an interesting possibility. I still think there’s a difference. For example, there’s a lot of disagreement within AI safety about what kind of problems are important and how to work on them, and most EAs (and AI safety people) seem much less inclined to try to argue with each other about this than I think we were at Stanford EA.
Agreed, but I can’t remember the last time I saw someone try to argue that you should donate to AMF rather than longtermism.
I think this is probably a mixture of longtermism winning over most people who’d write this kind of post, and also that people are less enthusiastic about arguing about cause prio these days for whatever reason. I think the post would be recieved well inasmuch as it was good. Maybe we’re agreeing here?
Whenever I do see near-termism come up, people don’t seem afraid to communicate that they think that it is obviously indefensible, or that they think even a third-rate longtermist intervention is probably incomparably better than AMF because at least it’s longtermist.
I don’t see people say that very often. Eg I almost never see people say this in response to posts about neartermism on the EA Facebook group, or on posts here.
I’ve heard this impression from several people, but it’s unclear to me whether EAs have become more deferential, although it is my impression that many EAs are currently highly deferential. It seems quite plausible to me that it is merely more apparent that EAs are highly deferential right now, because the ‘official EA consensus’ (i.e. longtermism) is more readily apparent. I think this largely explains the dynamics highlighted in this post and in the comments. (Another possibility is simply that newer EAs are more likely to defer than veteran EAs and as EA is still growing rapidly, we constantly get higher %s of non-veteran EAs, who are more likely to defer. I actually think the real picture is a bit more complicated than this, partly because I think moderately engaged and invested EAs are more likely to defer than the newest EAs, but we don’t need to get into that here).
My impression is that EA culture and other features of the EA community implicitly encourage deference very heavily (despite the fact that many senior EAs would, in the abstract, like more independent thinking from EAs). In terms of social approval and respect, as well as access to EA resources (like jobs or grants), deference to expert EA opinion (both in the sense of sharing the same views and in the sense of directly showing that you defer to senior EA experts) seem pretty essential.
Relatedly, my purely anecdotal impression is basically the opposite here. As EA has professionalised I think there are more explicit norms about “niceness”, but I think it’s never been clearer or more acceptable to communicate implicitly or explicitly, that you think that people who support AMF (or other near-termist) probably just ‘don’t get’ longtermism and aren’t worth engaging with.
Here’s what leads me to think EA seems more deferential now.
I spent a lot of time with the Stanford EA club in 2015 and 2016, and was close friends with many of the people there. We related to EA very differently to how I relate to EA now, and how most newer/younger EAs I talk to seem to relate to it.
The common attitude was something like “we’re utilitarians, and we want to do as much good as we can. EA has some interesting people and interesting ideas in it. However, it’s not clear who we can trust; there’s lots of fiery debate about cause prioritization, and we just don’t at all know whether we should donate to AMF or the Humane League or MIRI. There are EA orgs like CEA, 80K, MIRI, GiveWell, but it’s not clear which of those people we should trust, given that the things they say don’t always make sense to us, and they have different enough bottom line beliefs that some of them must be wrong.”
It’s much rarer nowadays for me to hear people have an attitude where they’re wholeheartedly excited about utilitarianism but openly skeptical to the EA “establishment”.
Part of this is that I think the arguments around cause prioritization are much better understood and less contentious now.
I feel like there are many fewer EA forum posts and facebook posts where people argue back and forth about whether to donate to AMF or more speculative things than there used to be.
I actually agree that there seems to have been some shift roughly along these lines.
My view is roughly that EAs were equally disposed to be deferential then as they are now (if there were a clear EA consensus then, most of these EAs would have deferred to it, as they do now), but that “because the ‘official EA consensus’ (i.e. longtermism) is more readily apparent” now, people’s disposition to defer is more apparent.
So I would agree that some EAs were actually more directly engaged in thinking about fundamental EA prioritisation because they did not see an EA position that they could defer to at all. But other EAs I think were deferring to those they perceived as EA experts back then, just as they are now, it’s just that they were deferring to different EA experts than other EAs. For example, I think earlier years many EAs thought that Giving What We Can (previously an exclusively poverty org, of course) and GiveWell, were the EA experts, and meanwhile there were some ‘crazy’ people (MIRI and LessWrongers) who were outside the EA mainstream. I imagine this perspective was more common outside the Bay Area.
Agreed, but I can’t remember the last time I saw someone try to argue that you should donate to AMF rather than longtermism. I’ve seen more posts/comments/discussions along the lines of ‘Are you aware of any EA arguments against longtermism?’ Clearly there are still lots of EAs who donate to AMF and support near-termism (cause prioritisation, donation data), but I think they are mostly keeping quiet. Whenever I do see near-termism come up, people don’t seem afraid to communicate that they think that it is obviously indefensible, or that they think even a third-rate longtermist intervention is probably incomparably better than AMF because at least it’s longtermist.
This is an interesting possibility. I still think there’s a difference. For example, there’s a lot of disagreement within AI safety about what kind of problems are important and how to work on them, and most EAs (and AI safety people) seem much less inclined to try to argue with each other about this than I think we were at Stanford EA.
I think this is probably a mixture of longtermism winning over most people who’d write this kind of post, and also that people are less enthusiastic about arguing about cause prio these days for whatever reason. I think the post would be recieved well inasmuch as it was good. Maybe we’re agreeing here?
I don’t see people say that very often. Eg I almost never see people say this in response to posts about neartermism on the EA Facebook group, or on posts here.