Separate but related to community, I think your point about identity, and whether fostering EA as an identity is epistemically healthy, is also relevant to (1).
Your analogy to church spoke very powerfully to me and to something I have always been a bit uncomfortable with. To me, EA is a philosophy/school of thought, and I struggle to understand how a person can “be” a philosophy, or how a philosophy can “recruit members”.
I also suspect that a strong self-perception that one is a “good person” can just as often provide (internal and external) cover for wrong-doing as it can be a motivator to actually do good, as any number of high-profile non-profit scandals (and anecdotal experience from I’m guessing most young women who have ever been involved in a movement for change) can tell you.
I have nothing at all against organic communities, or professional conferences etc, but I also wonder whether there is evidence that building EA as an identity (“join us!”) as opposed to something that people can do is instrumentally effective for first-order causes. Maybe it does, but I think it warrants some interrogation.
Separate but related to community, I think your point about identity, and whether fostering EA as an identity is epistemically healthy, is also relevant to (1).
Your analogy to church spoke very powerfully to me and to something I have always been a bit uncomfortable with. To me, EA is a philosophy/school of thought, and I struggle to understand how a person can “be” a philosophy, or how a philosophy can “recruit members”.
I also suspect that a strong self-perception that one is a “good person” can just as often provide (internal and external) cover for wrong-doing as it can be a motivator to actually do good, as any number of high-profile non-profit scandals (and anecdotal experience from I’m guessing most young women who have ever been involved in a movement for change) can tell you.
I have nothing at all against organic communities, or professional conferences etc, but I also wonder whether there is evidence that building EA as an identity (“join us!”) as opposed to something that people can do is instrumentally effective for first-order causes. Maybe it does, but I think it warrants some interrogation.