Thanks for articulating arguments for this. There is a strong bias in favour of growth of various kinds in EA. There is an elementary growth strategy of naively pursuing growth as fast as possible. I also know several community members who are opposed to growing the movement much at all, as opposed to doing so carefully. However, hardly any effective altruists opposed to different kinds of movement growth lay out their arguments against them. This frustrates me as I’m genuinely curious to separate the good and bad arguments against rapid movement growth in EA, and that they’re not publicly written out like this makes that difficult.
Giving arguments for how to do movement growth to allow for nuanced discussion, rather than if we should do much movement growth at all, is very helpful.
Somewhat tangentially, am I unusual in finding the idea of ‘thought leaders’ for a movement about careful and conscientious consideration of ideas profoundly uncomfortable?
Definitely not. Often when I see the term used in EA it’s being used negatively. To be fair though, the alternative terms I was considering using, “EA insiders”, “EA elites”, aren’t too comfortable either.
I think someone suggested this in previous discussions about what euphemism we could use for extreme/hardcore EAs. The problem here is that one can be a full time EA without being an insider and one can be an insider without being full time.
While I think that could be a fair metacritique, the science of social change nearly always requires thought leaders/leadership as a method of normalization. It’s likely a sociological hangover of our tribal evolved psychology, but every tribe looks for a tribal leader. I’d say the EA movement is doing a decent job of put forward thoughtful voices without building a messianic culture. What do you think?
Thanks for articulating arguments for this. There is a strong bias in favour of growth of various kinds in EA. There is an elementary growth strategy of naively pursuing growth as fast as possible. I also know several community members who are opposed to growing the movement much at all, as opposed to doing so carefully. However, hardly any effective altruists opposed to different kinds of movement growth lay out their arguments against them. This frustrates me as I’m genuinely curious to separate the good and bad arguments against rapid movement growth in EA, and that they’re not publicly written out like this makes that difficult.
Giving arguments for how to do movement growth to allow for nuanced discussion, rather than if we should do much movement growth at all, is very helpful.
This seemed more the case a couple of years ago. I think the pendulum has swung pretty hard in the other direction among EA thought leaders.
Somewhat tangentially, am I unusual in finding the idea of ‘thought leaders’ for a movement about careful and conscientious consideration of ideas profoundly uncomfortable?
Definitely not. Often when I see the term used in EA it’s being used negatively. To be fair though, the alternative terms I was considering using, “EA insiders”, “EA elites”, aren’t too comfortable either.
Maybe “full time EAs?”
I think someone suggested this in previous discussions about what euphemism we could use for extreme/hardcore EAs. The problem here is that one can be a full time EA without being an insider and one can be an insider without being full time.
While I think that could be a fair metacritique, the science of social change nearly always requires thought leaders/leadership as a method of normalization. It’s likely a sociological hangover of our tribal evolved psychology, but every tribe looks for a tribal leader. I’d say the EA movement is doing a decent job of put forward thoughtful voices without building a messianic culture. What do you think?
Yeah, I haven’t been checking. What data gave you that impression?