The narratives in EA and the messages are not the same
A key thing from Paul’s essay is that some cities have messages—they tell you that you should be a certain way. Eg. Cambridge tells you ‘you should be smarter’.
But Cambridge doesn’t tell you this explicitly, eg. there is probably no big billboard saying ‘you should be smarter, your sincerely, Cambridge’. As Paul says:
A city speaks to you mostly by accident — in things you see through windows, in conversations you overhear. It’s not something you have to seek out, but something you can’t turn off. One of the occupational hazards of living in Cambridge is overhearing the conversations of people who use interrogative intonation in declarative sentences.
My claim is something like: EA also ‘speaks to you mostly by accident—in things you see through windowns, in conversations you overhear’. And importantly, the way EA tells you that you should be a certain way can be different to the consensus narrative of how you should be.
For example, I posted a while back saying
Why do people overwork?
It seems to me that:
EAs will say things like—EA is a marathon not a sprint, it’s important to take care of your mental health, you can be more effective if you’re happier, working too much is counterproductive…
But also, it seems like a lot of EAs (at least people I know) are workaholics, work on weekends and take few holidays, sometimes feel burnt out…
Overall, it seems like there’s a discrepancy between what people say about eg. the importance of not overworking and what people do eg. overwork. Is that the case? Why?
It seems to me that the concensus narrative is ‘you should have a balanced life’, but the thing that EA implicitly tells you is ‘you should work harder’ (and this is the message that drives people’s behaviour).
Here’s a bunch of other speculative ways in which it seems to me that the consensus narrative and the implicit message come apart.
You should have a balanced life vs. you should work harder
You should think independently vs. you should think what we think
EA is about doing the most good with a portion of your resources vs. EA is about doing the most good with all of your resources
A weird thing: If respected/ important/ impressive people say eg. ‘EA is about maximising the good with only a portion of your resources’ but then what they do is give everything they have to EA including their soul and weekends, then the thing that other people end up doing is not maximising the good with only a portion of your resoures, but it is saying that EA is about maximising the good with only a portion of your resources, whilst giving everything plus the kitchen sink to EA. (H/T SWIM)
The discrepancy between explicit messages/ narratives vs. implicit messages/ incentives can result in some serious black-belt level mind-judo.
For example, previously if people had asked me about work life balance I would say that this is very important, people should have balance, very important. But then often I felt like I needed to work on evenings and weekends. To resolve this apparent discrepancy, I’d say to others that I didn’t really mind working on evenings and weekends, satisfying both the need to be consistent with the ‘don’t overwork/ take care of yourself’ narrative, and the need to get my work done/ keep up with the Joneses.
Good post. I’ve especially noticed such a discrepancy when it comes to independence vs deference to the EA consensus. It seems to me that many explicitly argue that one should be independent-minded, but that deference to the EA consensus is rewarded more often than those explicit discussions about deference suggest. (However, personally I think deference to EA consensus views is in fact often warranted.) You’re probably right that there is a general pattern between stated views and what is in fact rewarded across multiple issues.
One thought I had while reading this was just: you run slower during a marathon, but marathons are still really hard.
Maybe this comment conflates working more than average with giving “everything … including their soul and weekends”?
It’s tricky because different people perhaps need to hear different things here. I’d like to have a culture where it’s possible for people to work normal hours in EA jobs. But I also know people who work more than average because they care deeply about their work and are ambitious, without seeming (to me at least) to be on the verge of crisis.
The narratives in EA and the messages are not the same
A key thing from Paul’s essay is that some cities have messages—they tell you that you should be a certain way. Eg. Cambridge tells you ‘you should be smarter’.
But Cambridge doesn’t tell you this explicitly, eg. there is probably no big billboard saying ‘you should be smarter, your sincerely, Cambridge’. As Paul says:
My claim is something like: EA also ‘speaks to you mostly by accident—in things you see through windowns, in conversations you overhear’. And importantly, the way EA tells you that you should be a certain way can be different to the consensus narrative of how you should be.
For example, I posted a while back saying
It seems to me that the concensus narrative is ‘you should have a balanced life’, but the thing that EA implicitly tells you is ‘you should work harder’ (and this is the message that drives people’s behaviour).
Here’s a bunch of other speculative ways in which it seems to me that the consensus narrative and the implicit message come apart.
You should have a balanced life vs. you should work harder
You should think independently vs. you should think what we think
EA is about doing the most good with a portion of your resources vs. EA is about doing the most good with all of your resources
A weird thing: If respected/ important/ impressive people say eg. ‘EA is about maximising the good with only a portion of your resources’ but then what they do is give everything they have to EA including their soul and weekends, then the thing that other people end up doing is not maximising the good with only a portion of your resoures, but it is saying that EA is about maximising the good with only a portion of your resources, whilst giving everything plus the kitchen sink to EA. (H/T SWIM)
The discrepancy between explicit messages/ narratives vs. implicit messages/ incentives can result in some serious black-belt level mind-judo.
For example, previously if people had asked me about work life balance I would say that this is very important, people should have balance, very important. But then often I felt like I needed to work on evenings and weekends. To resolve this apparent discrepancy, I’d say to others that I didn’t really mind working on evenings and weekends, satisfying both the need to be consistent with the ‘don’t overwork/ take care of yourself’ narrative, and the need to get my work done/ keep up with the Joneses.
Good post. I’ve especially noticed such a discrepancy when it comes to independence vs deference to the EA consensus. It seems to me that many explicitly argue that one should be independent-minded, but that deference to the EA consensus is rewarded more often than those explicit discussions about deference suggest. (However, personally I think deference to EA consensus views is in fact often warranted.) You’re probably right that there is a general pattern between stated views and what is in fact rewarded across multiple issues.
One thought I had while reading this was just: you run slower during a marathon, but marathons are still really hard.
Maybe this comment conflates working more than average with giving “everything … including their soul and weekends”?
It’s tricky because different people perhaps need to hear different things here. I’d like to have a culture where it’s possible for people to work normal hours in EA jobs. But I also know people who work more than average because they care deeply about their work and are ambitious, without seeming (to me at least) to be on the verge of crisis.