The main reason I think the Bay is a bad place is that it has a culture bubble, which causes people to be out of touch with the actual problems in the world. It makes sense for people interfacing with tech and AI to be proximate to Silicon Valley but nothing else.
I see you’ve been highly upvoted, so I guess I will take a stab at it—but I don’t actually know if this comment will be helpful; it seems more likely to distract than edify. (The main thing I’m going to do is argue against bits of the post, saying why I think they’re bad reasons; but I don’t have any insight into the mindset of the author as they were writing it. I infer that a mind was rationalizing by the output of bad reasons.)
Anyway, here goes.
Reason 1 (“university outreach”) is bad because who cares? People doing university outreach can go live near the universities. Universities are an important aspect of the EA recruitment pipeline but seem to have no impact on where people actually go once they have a career.
Reason 2 (“more cause areas on the East Coast”) is bad because we don’t care about cause area count, we care about the distribution of people working in different cause areas. The first three bullet points (AI, biosecurity, policy) are correct and fine but they don’t say anything about the broader EA community. The animal welfare bullet point is too speculative; the community building one is circular reasoning.
Reason 3 (“travel distances”) is bad because who cares? Most people don’t travel often enough for this to matter. I actually travel a lot myself so it matters to me a little bit, but I can tell that I am rationalizing when I choose to live places based on travel distances and so I am pretty sure author is also.
Reason 4 (“save money”) proves too much: if this reason was important then this post should argue that people should move to rural areas, not cities. The difference between cost of living across SF, DC, and NYC is tiny relative to the benefit you would get from moving elsewhere. So this reason cannot be that important.
Reason 5 (“optics”) is the most complicated argument relying on too many conjunctive assumptions about the way the movement will be perceived if various things happen.
Reason 3 (travel distances) includes local transit. As a New Yorker, I commute to work at least once a week, and I’m thankful that the subway gets me there in under 30 minutes. In the Bay Area, due to the company I work for, I’d be commuting for at least an hour from either San Francisco or Berkeley into San Jose in horrid rush-hour traffic (or a mix of BART and Uber which, though slower, was a more pleasant experience), or living in the South Bay itself, which does not have great transit options either.
1: An important part of the university recruitment pipeline is the ability to easily connect university students with professionals who can serve as their mentors and potentially employers. University outreach will likely be more effective if there is a hub near the university.
2: Can you say more about cause area count vs. distribution? I’m not sure I understand your claim. Re: animal welfare, as the director of EA NYC, I do not think this is speculative and I think it is fairly widely recognized.
3: We often have EAs pass through NYC from other east coast cities and many EAs/EA orgs do east coast tours. Likewise, there have historically been east coast retreats that bring in EAs from multiple cities and that wouldn’t be comparably possible on the west coast.
The main reason I think the Bay is a bad place is that it has a culture bubble, which causes people to be out of touch with the actual problems in the world.
Couldn’t the same be said of any location in the developed world, which would include any plausible candidate for an EA hub?
To some degree yes. But it’s worse in the Bay than anywhere else. Even developing countries also have a culture bubble too, they just have it in the “wrong direction” (e.g., in Africa, too few people think long term and have experience with science, technology, etc).
To me, if we are choosing the best place to avoid culture bubbles, I would choose someplace cosmopolitan: where tons of different people with different views are mashed together in a way where you can easily juxtapose them. NYC, London, Singapore, Toronto, etc.
I’m pretty sure rationality and rationalization read the same though? That’s sort of the point of rationalization. The distinction, whether it is sampling the evidence in a biased way, is often outside of the text.
Hey, I’m sorry to be harsh, but your reasons are not very good. This whole post reads like rationalization.
I say this while also agreeing with your conclusion: I lived in Boston, NYC and DC for a long time, have a bunch of friends in various East Coast EA groups. The East Coast is a great place for effective altruism already :) -- I’m in DC and the DC group is really good (as referenced in https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9uPMWPZg8mqmcAhhL/selfish-reasons-to-move-to-dc)
The main reason I think the Bay is a bad place is that it has a culture bubble, which causes people to be out of touch with the actual problems in the world. It makes sense for people interfacing with tech and AI to be proximate to Silicon Valley but nothing else.
Would be good to explain why when you write that.
I see you’ve been highly upvoted, so I guess I will take a stab at it—but I don’t actually know if this comment will be helpful; it seems more likely to distract than edify. (The main thing I’m going to do is argue against bits of the post, saying why I think they’re bad reasons; but I don’t have any insight into the mindset of the author as they were writing it. I infer that a mind was rationalizing by the output of bad reasons.)
Anyway, here goes.
Reason 1 (“university outreach”) is bad because who cares? People doing university outreach can go live near the universities. Universities are an important aspect of the EA recruitment pipeline but seem to have no impact on where people actually go once they have a career.
Reason 2 (“more cause areas on the East Coast”) is bad because we don’t care about cause area count, we care about the distribution of people working in different cause areas. The first three bullet points (AI, biosecurity, policy) are correct and fine but they don’t say anything about the broader EA community. The animal welfare bullet point is too speculative; the community building one is circular reasoning.
Reason 3 (“travel distances”) is bad because who cares? Most people don’t travel often enough for this to matter. I actually travel a lot myself so it matters to me a little bit, but I can tell that I am rationalizing when I choose to live places based on travel distances and so I am pretty sure author is also.
Reason 4 (“save money”) proves too much: if this reason was important then this post should argue that people should move to rural areas, not cities. The difference between cost of living across SF, DC, and NYC is tiny relative to the benefit you would get from moving elsewhere. So this reason cannot be that important.
Reason 5 (“optics”) is the most complicated argument relying on too many conjunctive assumptions about the way the movement will be perceived if various things happen.
Cheers, thanks for explaining your reasoning.
Reason 3 (travel distances) includes local transit. As a New Yorker, I commute to work at least once a week, and I’m thankful that the subway gets me there in under 30 minutes. In the Bay Area, due to the company I work for, I’d be commuting for at least an hour from either San Francisco or Berkeley into San Jose in horrid rush-hour traffic (or a mix of BART and Uber which, though slower, was a more pleasant experience), or living in the South Bay itself, which does not have great transit options either.
Some responses:
1: An important part of the university recruitment pipeline is the ability to easily connect university students with professionals who can serve as their mentors and potentially employers. University outreach will likely be more effective if there is a hub near the university.
2: Can you say more about cause area count vs. distribution? I’m not sure I understand your claim. Re: animal welfare, as the director of EA NYC, I do not think this is speculative and I think it is fairly widely recognized.
3: We often have EAs pass through NYC from other east coast cities and many EAs/EA orgs do east coast tours. Likewise, there have historically been east coast retreats that bring in EAs from multiple cities and that wouldn’t be comparably possible on the west coast.
Couldn’t the same be said of any location in the developed world, which would include any plausible candidate for an EA hub?
To some degree yes. But it’s worse in the Bay than anywhere else. Even developing countries also have a culture bubble too, they just have it in the “wrong direction” (e.g., in Africa, too few people think long term and have experience with science, technology, etc).
To me, if we are choosing the best place to avoid culture bubbles, I would choose someplace cosmopolitan: where tons of different people with different views are mashed together in a way where you can easily juxtapose them. NYC, London, Singapore, Toronto, etc.
I’m pretty sure rationality and rationalization read the same though? That’s sort of the point of rationalization. The distinction, whether it is sampling the evidence in a biased way, is often outside of the text.