Your last section appears a nonsequitor to me. Feel free to explain how it is not?
But to the extent we should be talking about resource allocation, I think someone should flag that some antidating policies may have the effect of less resources being put on interventions that could be good. Let’s be honest, community building is not a high status gig in EA say compared to researcher, founder, etc. The mantra “Those who can’t do, teach” comes to mind, whether it should or not. And EAs rarely do organizing fulltime… even the EA infrastructure fund said they get very few applications for funding to do it as a salary role. But we want someone to do these things. And people leave CB for brighter professional pastures and to solve more novel problems constantly.
As a community organizer, I am/would be really hesitant to date event attendees before they first become very good friends outside of the context. But one of the few professional benefits that CB has compared to other things is the ability to meet and make connections with people. Remove even part of that, and make people stifle themselves, and I think community organizing will lose some of its zest as a career or freetime focus that keep people motivated about it, and which we want people to focus on. Well, at least it might remove some zest and people working on the problem, and make us less aligned with our priorities, as much as the other side of the coin which you have brought up.
Your last section appears a nonsequitor to me. Feel free to explain how it is not?
But to the extent we should be talking about resource allocation, I think someone should flag that some antidating policies may have the effect of less resources being put on interventions that could be good. Let’s be honest, community building is not a high status gig in EA say compared to researcher, founder, etc. The mantra “Those who can’t do, teach” comes to mind, whether it should or not. And EAs rarely do organizing fulltime… even the EA infrastructure fund said they get very few applications for funding to do it as a salary role. But we want someone to do these things. And people leave CB for brighter professional pastures and to solve more novel problems constantly.
As a community organizer, I am/would be really hesitant to date event attendees before they first become very good friends outside of the context. But one of the few professional benefits that CB has compared to other things is the ability to meet and make connections with people. Remove even part of that, and make people stifle themselves, and I think community organizing will lose some of its zest as a career or freetime focus that keep people motivated about it, and which we want people to focus on. Well, at least it might remove some zest and people working on the problem, and make us less aligned with our priorities, as much as the other side of the coin which you have brought up.