The tractability of further centralisation seems low
I’m not sure yet about my overall take on the piece but I do quibble a bit with this; I think that there are lots of simple steps that CEA/Will/various central actors (possibly including me) could do, if we wished, to push towards centralization. Things like:
Having most of the resources come from one place
Declaring that a certain type of resource is the “official” resource which we “recommend”
Running invite-only conferences where we invite all the people that are looked-up-to as leaders in the community, and specifically try to get those leaders on the same page strategically
Generally demonstrating intensely high levels of cooperativeness with people who are “trusted” along some shared legible axis, and much lower levels of cooperativeness with outsiders
Stop publishing critical info publicly, relying on whisper networks to get the word out about things
I didn’t start off writing this comment to be snarky, but I realized that we are, kind of, doing most of these things. Do we intend to? Should we maybe not do them if we think we want to push away from centralization?
Thanks! I agree that we are already (kind of) doing most of these things. So the question is whether further centralisation is tractable (and desirable). Like I say, it seems to me the big thing is if there’s someone, or some group of people, who really wants to make that further centralisation to happen. (E.g. I don’t think I’d be the right person even if I wanted to do it.)
Some things I didn’t understand from your bullet-point list:
Having most of the resources come from one place
By “resources” do you primarily mean funding? (I’ll assume yes.)
Declaring that a certain type of resource is the “official” resource which we “recommend”
Here, by “resource” do you here mean information (books, etc)? (I’ll assume yes.)
Stop publishing critical info publicly, relying on whisper networks to get the word out about things
This doesn’t clearly map onto “centralised” vs “decentralised” to me?
Of your list, the first two bullet-points seem non-desirable to me in a totally ideal world. But of course having lots of funding from OP is much, much better than not having the funding at all!
The second two bullet points seem good to have, even if EA were more decentralised than it is now.
Yeah, sorry, I wrote the comment quickly and “resources” was overloaded. My first reference to resources was intended to be money; the second was information like career guides and such.
I think the critical-info-in-private thing is actually super impactful towards centralization, because when the info leaks, the “decentralized people” have a high-salience moment where they realize that what’s happening privately isn’t what they thought was happening publicly, they feel slightly lied-to or betrayed, lose perceived empowerment and engagement.
I feel like you … maybe did not try very hard to brainstorm incremental pro-centralisation steps? I set aside 5 minutes and came up with 17 options, mainly quite tractable, that CEA/EV/OP could do if they wished, starting with very simple ideas like “publicly announce that centralisation is good”.
(Not sharing the list because I’m not convinced I want more power centralised).
I’m not sure yet about my overall take on the piece but I do quibble a bit with this; I think that there are lots of simple steps that CEA/Will/various central actors (possibly including me) could do, if we wished, to push towards centralization. Things like:
Having most of the resources come from one place
Declaring that a certain type of resource is the “official” resource which we “recommend”
Running invite-only conferences where we invite all the people that are looked-up-to as leaders in the community, and specifically try to get those leaders on the same page strategically
Generally demonstrating intensely high levels of cooperativeness with people who are “trusted” along some shared legible axis, and much lower levels of cooperativeness with outsiders
Stop publishing critical info publicly, relying on whisper networks to get the word out about things
I didn’t start off writing this comment to be snarky, but I realized that we are, kind of, doing most of these things. Do we intend to? Should we maybe not do them if we think we want to push away from centralization?
Thanks! I agree that we are already (kind of) doing most of these things. So the question is whether further centralisation is tractable (and desirable). Like I say, it seems to me the big thing is if there’s someone, or some group of people, who really wants to make that further centralisation to happen. (E.g. I don’t think I’d be the right person even if I wanted to do it.)
Some things I didn’t understand from your bullet-point list:
By “resources” do you primarily mean funding? (I’ll assume yes.)
Here, by “resource” do you here mean information (books, etc)? (I’ll assume yes.)
This doesn’t clearly map onto “centralised” vs “decentralised” to me?
Of your list, the first two bullet-points seem non-desirable to me in a totally ideal world. But of course having lots of funding from OP is much, much better than not having the funding at all!
The second two bullet points seem good to have, even if EA were more decentralised than it is now.
Yeah, sorry, I wrote the comment quickly and “resources” was overloaded. My first reference to resources was intended to be money; the second was information like career guides and such.
I think the critical-info-in-private thing is actually super impactful towards centralization, because when the info leaks, the “decentralized people” have a high-salience moment where they realize that what’s happening privately isn’t what they thought was happening publicly, they feel slightly lied-to or betrayed, lose perceived empowerment and engagement.
I feel like you … maybe did not try very hard to brainstorm incremental pro-centralisation steps? I set aside 5 minutes and came up with 17 options, mainly quite tractable, that CEA/EV/OP could do if they wished, starting with very simple ideas like “publicly announce that centralisation is good”.
(Not sharing the list because I’m not convinced I want more power centralised).