I appreciate your point, but this isn’t consistent with my experience. I find that the Forum seems to be more bullish on EA than both EAs and non-EAs I talk to elsewhere/privately.
[Edit: If you feel like it, I’d also appreciate a response to my substantive points. Is it that:
(1) Your framework for what it’d look like for EA to be dying is different from mine?
(2) You accept my framework, but don’t think EA currently meets the criteria I’ve delineated?
And, separately, do you disagree with my point that even if EA dying is unlikely, we should still make a contingency plan?]
I think finding out the true state of play here is really important. What signs would we look for a sign of EA movements health that follow the 3 stages you suggested above? Perhaps the rate of sign-ups to the GWWC pledge, or total EAG applications, or people signing up to EA virtual courses? Funding might be easier to track, but the numbers are always going to be skewed by Open Philanthropy, and I don’t think that Dustin and Cari are going to go anywhere soon (which might update you slightly toward EA robustness?).
I guess there might be more failure modes than EA ‘collapse’, though we ought to watch out for it. This could be a bit of a retrenchment for the movement, where hopefully we can learn from our mistakes, improve institutions, and keep doing good in 2023 and beyond.
I’d suggest unrelenting, near-uniform public hatred as a potential failure mode (which != having many enemies or being merely unpopular). Some degree of other actors being willing to cooperate can be awfully important to effectiveness.
I don’t agree with any of your criteria for “death”. All of those sound totally survivable. “EA exits its recent high-growth phase” is very different from dying.
I would modify them to:
Significant year-on-year decreases in funding
Significant year-on-year decreases in self-identifying EAs
i.e. we transition to a negative growth regime and stay there.
And I think we could survive a lot of organizational collapse so I wouldn’t even include that.
I appreciate your point, but this isn’t consistent with my experience. I find that the Forum seems to be more bullish on EA than both EAs and non-EAs I talk to elsewhere/privately.
[Edit: If you feel like it, I’d also appreciate a response to my substantive points. Is it that:
(1) Your framework for what it’d look like for EA to be dying is different from mine?
(2) You accept my framework, but don’t think EA currently meets the criteria I’ve delineated?
And, separately, do you disagree with my point that even if EA dying is unlikely, we should still make a contingency plan?]
I think finding out the true state of play here is really important. What signs would we look for a sign of EA movements health that follow the 3 stages you suggested above? Perhaps the rate of sign-ups to the GWWC pledge, or total EAG applications, or people signing up to EA virtual courses? Funding might be easier to track, but the numbers are always going to be skewed by Open Philanthropy, and I don’t think that Dustin and Cari are going to go anywhere soon (which might update you slightly toward EA robustness?).
I guess there might be more failure modes than EA ‘collapse’, though we ought to watch out for it. This could be a bit of a retrenchment for the movement, where hopefully we can learn from our mistakes, improve institutions, and keep doing good in 2023 and beyond.
I’d suggest unrelenting, near-uniform public hatred as a potential failure mode (which != having many enemies or being merely unpopular). Some degree of other actors being willing to cooperate can be awfully important to effectiveness.
I don’t agree with any of your criteria for “death”. All of those sound totally survivable. “EA exits its recent high-growth phase” is very different from dying.
I would modify them to:
Significant year-on-year decreases in funding
Significant year-on-year decreases in self-identifying EAs
i.e. we transition to a negative growth regime and stay there.
And I think we could survive a lot of organizational collapse so I wouldn’t even include that.