At our Dutch EA meetup we got some feedback from a complete newcomer which we found quite useful. To summarize:
EA lacks concrete actions that a newcomer can take to do something that is in some sense effective. In particular, to make a tangible impact. Everything seems to pay off (if at all) in the very long run. Not appealing to a broad audience.
Because EA lacks concrete actions and a concrete common purpose, the message remains unclear. Only a certain type of person can handle this ambiguity long-term. We’ve got the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’, but the ‘What’ remains blurry (she was not familiar with Will’s post about EA, which uses exactly these terms to describe EA btw).
Yeah we got similar feedback in Melbourne and agreed that it was not clear that we had great short-term things for people to do. There’s donating, for one, and in Oxford, historically, there’s been scope for volunteering, but apart from that it is tricker. There’s .impact, and there’s helping with arranging events and talks but it’s not clear that those are the right kind of activity. Obviously, protests aren’t either. But some kinds of non-costly in-group activities that have at least some impact would be great.
At our Dutch EA meetup we got some feedback from a complete newcomer which we found quite useful. To summarize:
EA lacks concrete actions that a newcomer can take to do something that is in some sense effective. In particular, to make a tangible impact. Everything seems to pay off (if at all) in the very long run. Not appealing to a broad audience.
Because EA lacks concrete actions and a concrete common purpose, the message remains unclear. Only a certain type of person can handle this ambiguity long-term. We’ve got the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’, but the ‘What’ remains blurry (she was not familiar with Will’s post about EA, which uses exactly these terms to describe EA btw).
Yeah we got similar feedback in Melbourne and agreed that it was not clear that we had great short-term things for people to do. There’s donating, for one, and in Oxford, historically, there’s been scope for volunteering, but apart from that it is tricker. There’s .impact, and there’s helping with arranging events and talks but it’s not clear that those are the right kind of activity. Obviously, protests aren’t either. But some kinds of non-costly in-group activities that have at least some impact would be great.