There is space for those of us who for example prefer the GHD cause area. A quick visit to this forum would also have showed this. What are we doing wrong in the framing of EA which makes certain people become so critical of the movement, and what make the “negatives” stand out so much more?
Some thoughts:
Youtubers are rarely impartial and thorough, so it shouldn’t be surprising that a person with finite time to investigate a movement they likely already felt negatively about would do a so-so job and not go beyond the reddit-level understanding of EA and EAs.
Adding on to your observation, the youtuber’s conclusion doesn’t capture how the vast majority of EAs who are into specific causes and varying levels of certainty about their beliefs. It doesn’t capture the friendship and antagonism between rats and EA, between EA and silicon valley people, between EAs and the left, and EAs and the right …
Youtubers also need to youtube—the algorithm also rewards inflammatory language, so “xyz is literally the worst thing in the world” will always do better than “I have mixed feelings about xyz.”
I don’t know if it is productive to engage with every video of this nature, but it definitely made me think about EA’s public “persona.” Barring the narrow cluster of possible futures where the world goes exactly how a few dozen east bay rationalists think it will, I feel cause-neutral community building and comms still has value.
Maybe the movement has reached a cap in terms of its size?
There are 8+ billion humans, and only 10-15K EAs. We are simply not reaching out to the millions of proto-EAs out there! We also don’t have the capacity or institutional intent to accommodate that many people.
Some thoughts:
Youtubers are rarely impartial and thorough, so it shouldn’t be surprising that a person with finite time to investigate a movement they likely already felt negatively about would do a so-so job and not go beyond the reddit-level understanding of EA and EAs.
Adding on to your observation, the youtuber’s conclusion doesn’t capture how the vast majority of EAs who are into specific causes and varying levels of certainty about their beliefs. It doesn’t capture the friendship and antagonism between rats and EA, between EA and silicon valley people, between EAs and the left, and EAs and the right …
Youtubers also need to youtube—the algorithm also rewards inflammatory language, so “xyz is literally the worst thing in the world” will always do better than “I have mixed feelings about xyz.”
I don’t know if it is productive to engage with every video of this nature, but it definitely made me think about EA’s public “persona.” Barring the narrow cluster of possible futures where the world goes exactly how a few dozen east bay rationalists think it will, I feel cause-neutral community building and comms still has value.
Definitely not! Reminder that a minority have heard about EA and have some basic understanding of the movement (and the basic EA pitch is well-received): https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CwKiAt54aJjcqoQDh/are-1-in-5-americans-familiar-with-ea
There are 8+ billion humans, and only 10-15K EAs. We are simply not reaching out to the millions of proto-EAs out there! We also don’t have the capacity or institutional intent to accommodate that many people.