But why exactly should I help those in the community who believe that the moral thing to do when someone is on their knees is to curb stomp them while yelling āI should have been admitted to EAG 2016!ā? Why should I expose myself further by doing ambitious things (No I donāt mean fraud- thatās not an ambitious thing thatās aācriminalāthing) when if I fail people are going to make everything worse by screaming āI told you soā to signal that they never would have been such a newb? Yeah. No. The circle Iām drawing around who is and is not in my community is getting dramatically redrawn. This is not because one person or company made a series of very bad decisions, itās because so many of your actions are those of people I will not invest in further and who I donāt want anywhere near my life or lifeās work.
This paragraph really resonated with me. I suspect many people whom we would benefit greatly from having in our community are turned off because of they got the same feeling you articulated here.
Iām finding difficult to articulate why I think this is, but let me attempt:
When Iāve been at my least productive, I find myself falling into a terrible zero-sum mindset of actively searching for things that are unjust or unfair. My thoughts often take the shape of something like:
Why do influential EAās only care about <thing they think is important> and not <thing I think is important> ?
āIf EA was less <elitist/ānepotistic> and more <democratic/āopen/āwhatever> then my pet cause would get the attention it deserves! ā
On the other hand, when Iām at my most productive and fully immersed projects that matter to me, I donāt ever find myself thinking those thoughts. Iām too focused on actually getting things done and producing surplus to care about how others spend their time and resources.
In this mindset Iām incredibly optimistic and I intuitively feel that any problem solvable if I put my mind to it. In the former mindset, everything seems doomed to fail and I want to sneer at anyone who thinks otherwise.
These mindsets feel very distinct, and itās very clear the latter is highly conducive to success and the former is actively harmful. If somebody with the latter mindset gets their first impression of EA from people with the former, I donāt blame them for bailing.
This paragraph really resonated with me. I suspect many people whom we would benefit greatly from having in our community are turned off because of they got the same feeling you articulated here.
Iām finding difficult to articulate why I think this is, but let me attempt:
When Iāve been at my least productive, I find myself falling into a terrible zero-sum mindset of actively searching for things that are unjust or unfair. My thoughts often take the shape of something like:
On the other hand, when Iām at my most productive and fully immersed projects that matter to me, I donāt ever find myself thinking those thoughts. Iām too focused on actually getting things done and producing surplus to care about how others spend their time and resources.
In this mindset Iām incredibly optimistic and I intuitively feel that any problem solvable if I put my mind to it. In the former mindset, everything seems doomed to fail and I want to sneer at anyone who thinks otherwise.
These mindsets feel very distinct, and itās very clear the latter is highly conducive to success and the former is actively harmful. If somebody with the latter mindset gets their first impression of EA from people with the former, I donāt blame them for bailing.
I didnāt notice this comment and I think itās excellent. Thank you so much for sharing.