Just some ranty thoughts about EA university groups without any suggestions. Don’t take too seriously.
Lots of university EA group organisers I have met seem to not be very knowledgeable about EA. A common type is someone who had gotten involved for social reasons and uses EA terms in conversations but doesn’t really get it. I can imagine this being offputting to the types of people these groups would like to join. Probably this is less of a problem at top universities though.
It also feels awkward to mention this to people because I know these group organisers have good intentions but they may be turning off cool people from engaging with the EA groups. It is even more awkward when community building is their part-time job. It’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that I wouldn’t be excited about a promising student first coming across EA by interacting with them.
Less confidently, it seems like in some groups there is too much of an emphasis on being very agenty right away and making big projects happen (especially community-building projects) compared to having a culture of intellectual curiosity and prioritising making interesting conversations happen that are not about community building. It also feels like for young people in EA, there are strong incentives to network hard, go to Berkeley, go to a bunch of retreats so you have cool important EA friends and all of this cuts down the time you can just sit down and learn important things, skill up and introspect.
There have been posts on the EA forum pointing at similar things so it feels like the situation might become better over the next year but this is just me recording what my experience has been like at times.
Just some ranty thoughts about EA university groups without any suggestions. Don’t take too seriously.
Lots of university EA group organisers I have met seem to not be very knowledgeable about EA. A common type is someone who had gotten involved for social reasons and uses EA terms in conversations but doesn’t really get it. I can imagine this being offputting to the types of people these groups would like to join. Probably this is less of a problem at top universities though.
It also feels awkward to mention this to people because I know these group organisers have good intentions but they may be turning off cool people from engaging with the EA groups. It is even more awkward when community building is their part-time job. It’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that I wouldn’t be excited about a promising student first coming across EA by interacting with them.
Less confidently, it seems like in some groups there is too much of an emphasis on being very agenty right away and making big projects happen (especially community-building projects) compared to having a culture of intellectual curiosity and prioritising making interesting conversations happen that are not about community building. It also feels like for young people in EA, there are strong incentives to network hard, go to Berkeley, go to a bunch of retreats so you have cool important EA friends and all of this cuts down the time you can just sit down and learn important things, skill up and introspect.
There have been posts on the EA forum pointing at similar things so it feels like the situation might become better over the next year but this is just me recording what my experience has been like at times.