In my model, strong ties are the ones that need most work because they have highest payoff. I would suggest they generate weak ties even more efficiently than focusing on creating weak ties.
This hinges on the assumption that the strong-tie groups are sufficiently diverse to avoid insularity. Which seems to be the case at sufficiently long timescales (e.g 1+years) as most strong tie groups that are very homogenous eventually fall apart if they’re actually trying to do something and not just congratulate one another. That hopefully applies to any EA group.
That’s why I’m excited that, especially in the past year, the CBG program seems to be funding more teams in various locations, instead of just individuals. And I think those CB teams would do best to build more teams who start projects. The CB teams then provide services and infrastructure to keep exchange between all teams going.
This suggests I would do fewer EAGx (because EAGs likely cover most of that need if CEA scales further) and more local “charity entrepreneurship” type things.
...most strong tie groups that are very homogenous eventually fall apart if they’re actually trying to do something and not just congratulate one another.
This doesn’t quite match my observations of (at least some) EA groups that have been around for a while (e.g. the Bay area community is quite homogeneous but has been around for several years, and they seem to be doing things) - do you have an example of groups falling apart you could share?
I thought that there was a typo and this should have read:
...most strong tie groups that are very homogenous eventually fall apart if they’re NOT actually trying to do something and not just congratulate one another.
I retract the text above—I think I’m wrong and just adding noise.
I also want to know the answer to Vaidehi’s question. She has good judgement (and I probably should stick to boosting her comments, as a general rule).
In my model, strong ties are the ones that need most work because they have highest payoff. I would suggest they generate weak ties even more efficiently than focusing on creating weak ties.
This hinges on the assumption that the strong-tie groups are sufficiently diverse to avoid insularity. Which seems to be the case at sufficiently long timescales (e.g 1+years) as most strong tie groups that are very homogenous eventually fall apart if they’re actually trying to do something and not just congratulate one another. That hopefully applies to any EA group.
That’s why I’m excited that, especially in the past year, the CBG program seems to be funding more teams in various locations, instead of just individuals. And I think those CB teams would do best to build more teams who start projects. The CB teams then provide services and infrastructure to keep exchange between all teams going.
This suggests I would do fewer EAGx (because EAGs likely cover most of that need if CEA scales further) and more local “charity entrepreneurship” type things.
This idea is really interesting!
This doesn’t quite match my observations of (at least some) EA groups that have been around for a while (e.g. the Bay area community is quite homogeneous but has been around for several years, and they seem to be doing things) - do you have an example of groups falling apart you could share?
I thought that there was a typo and this should have read:I retract the text above—I think I’m wrong and just adding noise.
I also want to know the answer to Vaidehi’s question. She has good judgement (and I probably should stick to boosting her comments, as a general rule).