I also think faster is better if the end size of our community stays the same. 👌🏼 I also think it’s possible that faster growth increases the end size of our community too. 🙂
Sorry if my past comment came across a bit harshly (I clearly have just been over-thinking this topic recently 😛)![1]
I do have an intuition, which I explain in more detail below, that lots of ways of growing really fast could end up making our community’s end size smaller. 😟
Therefore, I feel like focusing on fast growth is much less important than focusing on laying the groundwork to have a big end capacity (even if it takes us a while to get there).
It’s so easy to get caught up in short-term metrics so I think bringing the focus to short-term fast growth could take away attention from thinking about whether short-term growth is costing us long-term growth.
I don’t think we’re in danger of disappearing given our current momentum.
I do think we’re in danger of leaving a bad impression on a lot of people though and so I think it is important to manage that as well as we can. My intuition is that it will be easier to work out how to form a good impression if we don’t grow very fast in a very small amount of time.
Having said that, I’m also not against broad outreach efforts. I simply think that when doing broad outreach, it is really important to keep in mind whether the messages being sent out lay the groundwork for a nuanced impression later on (it’s easy to spread memes that makes more nuanced communication much harder).
However, I think memes about us are likely to spread if we’re trying to do big projects that attract media attention, whether or not we are the ones to spread those broad outreach messages.
I could totally buy into it being important to do our best to try and get the broad outreach messages we think are most valuable out there if we’re going to have attention regardless of whether we strategically prepare for it.
I have concrete examples in my post here of what I call “campground impacts” (our impact through our influence on people outside the EA community). If outreach results in a “worse campground”, then I think our community’s net impact will be smaller (so I’m against it). If outreach results in a “better campground”, then I think our community’s net impact will be bigger (so I’m for it). If faster-growth strategies result in a better campground then I’m probably for them, if they result in a worse campground, then I’m probably against them. 😛
I went back and edited it after Zach replied to more accurately convey my vibe but my first draft was all technicalities and no friendly vibes which I think is no way to have a good forum discussion! (sorry!)
(ok, you caught me, I mainly went back to add emojis, but I swear emojis are an integral part of good vibes when discussing complex topics in writing 😛🤣: cartoon facial expressions really do seem better than no facial expressions to convey that I am an actual human being who isn’t actually meaning to be harsh when I just blurt out some unpolished thoughts in a random forum comment😶😔🤔💡😃😊)
I also think faster is better if the end size of our community stays the same. 👌🏼 I also think it’s possible that faster growth increases the end size of our community too. 🙂
Sorry if my past comment came across a bit harshly (I clearly have just been over-thinking this topic recently 😛)![1]
I do have an intuition, which I explain in more detail below, that lots of ways of growing really fast could end up making our community’s end size smaller. 😟
Therefore, I feel like focusing on fast growth is much less important than focusing on laying the groundwork to have a big end capacity (even if it takes us a while to get there).
It’s so easy to get caught up in short-term metrics so I think bringing the focus to short-term fast growth could take away attention from thinking about whether short-term growth is costing us long-term growth.
I don’t think we’re in danger of disappearing given our current momentum.
I do think we’re in danger of leaving a bad impression on a lot of people though and so I think it is important to manage that as well as we can. My intuition is that it will be easier to work out how to form a good impression if we don’t grow very fast in a very small amount of time.
Having said that, I’m also not against broad outreach efforts. I simply think that when doing broad outreach, it is really important to keep in mind whether the messages being sent out lay the groundwork for a nuanced impression later on (it’s easy to spread memes that makes more nuanced communication much harder).
However, I think memes about us are likely to spread if we’re trying to do big projects that attract media attention, whether or not we are the ones to spread those broad outreach messages.
I could totally buy into it being important to do our best to try and get the broad outreach messages we think are most valuable out there if we’re going to have attention regardless of whether we strategically prepare for it.
I have concrete examples in my post here of what I call “campground impacts” (our impact through our influence on people outside the EA community). If outreach results in a “worse campground”, then I think our community’s net impact will be smaller (so I’m against it). If outreach results in a “better campground”, then I think our community’s net impact will be bigger (so I’m for it). If faster-growth strategies result in a better campground then I’m probably for them, if they result in a worse campground, then I’m probably against them. 😛
I went back and edited it after Zach replied to more accurately convey my vibe but my first draft was all technicalities and no friendly vibes which I think is no way to have a good forum discussion! (sorry!)
(ok, you caught me, I mainly went back to add emojis, but I swear emojis are an integral part of good vibes when discussing complex topics in writing 😛🤣: cartoon facial expressions really do seem better than no facial expressions to convey that I am an actual human being who isn’t actually meaning to be harsh when I just blurt out some unpolished thoughts in a random forum comment😶😔🤔💡😃😊)