The challenge is to link a journey outside EA with EA-relevancy. Let me unpack that a little bit and explain what I mean.
People stay too long trying to do centrally EA activities for a reason. If their only reason to walk away from EA is defeat and disappointment, or disillusionment, or even positive pressure and incentives to leave, that’s a sad outcome.
Journeying out of EA needs a way of being meaningful within the system of values that currently keeps people stuck in EA for too long.
One reason to do it is to bring back knowledge and perspectives the EA community doesn’t have.
Another is to develop aptitudes on somebody else’s dime.
A third is to build up one’s own personal slack.
A fourth is just to prove we can. EA is not a cult, and a hallmark of not-cults is being totally fine with people coming and going as they choose. Encouraging people to take jobs that seem fun and interesting for the sake of being fun and interesting, even if they’re not squarely EA, seems good on current margins.
A fifth is that EA still has a massive funding shortfall, as evidenced by the fact that FTX has something like a 4% grant approval rate. Resources for launching and hiring projects are very limited. There may be many more niches to do a lot of good outside EA than inside EA, simply because there are a lot more charitable and government dollars outside EA than inside.
The challenge is to link a journey outside EA with EA-relevancy. Let me unpack that a little bit and explain what I mean.
People stay too long trying to do centrally EA activities for a reason. If their only reason to walk away from EA is defeat and disappointment, or disillusionment, or even positive pressure and incentives to leave, that’s a sad outcome.
Journeying out of EA needs a way of being meaningful within the system of values that currently keeps people stuck in EA for too long.
One reason to do it is to bring back knowledge and perspectives the EA community doesn’t have.
Another is to develop aptitudes on somebody else’s dime.
A third is to build up one’s own personal slack.
A fourth is just to prove we can. EA is not a cult, and a hallmark of not-cults is being totally fine with people coming and going as they choose. Encouraging people to take jobs that seem fun and interesting for the sake of being fun and interesting, even if they’re not squarely EA, seems good on current margins.
A fifth is that EA still has a massive funding shortfall, as evidenced by the fact that FTX has something like a 4% grant approval rate. Resources for launching and hiring projects are very limited. There may be many more niches to do a lot of good outside EA than inside EA, simply because there are a lot more charitable and government dollars outside EA than inside.