My experience as a non-PhD who dropped out of EA things for two years before returning is that I felt welcome and accepted when I started showing up in EA spaces again. And now that Iāve been at CEA for three years, I still spend a lot of my time talking to and helping out people who are just getting started and donāt have any great credentials or accomplishments; I hope that Iām not putting pressure on them when I do this.
That said, every personās experience is unique, and some people have certainly felt this kind of pressure, whether self-imposed as a result of perceived community norms or thrust upon them by people who were rude or dismissive at some point. And thatās clearly awful ā people shouldnāt be made to feel this way in general, and itās especially galling to hear about it sometimes happening within EA.
My impression is that few of these rude or dismissive people are themselves highly invested in the community, but my impression may be skewed by the relationships Iāve built with various highly invested people in the job I now have.
Lots of people with pretty normal backgrounds have clearly had enormous impact (too many examples to list!). And within the EA spaces I frequent, thereās a lot of interest and excitement about people sharing their stories of joining the movement, even if those people donāt have any special credentials. The most prominent example of this might be Giving What We Can.
I donāt understand the āmenial laborā point; the most common jobs for people in the broader EA community are very white-collar (programmers, lawyers, teachers...) What did you mean by that?
Personally, the way I view āordinary folk dignityā in EA is through something I call āthe airplane testā. If I sat next to someone on an airplane and saw them reading Doing Good Better, and they seemed excited about EA when I talked to them, Iād be very happy to have met them, even if they didnāt have any special ambitions beyond finding a good charity and making occasional donations. There arenāt many people in the world who share our unusual collection of values; every new person is precious.
Nono, Iām not trying to point to a problem of EAs trying to make others feel unwelcome or dumb. I think EA is extremely kind, and almost universally tries hard to make people feel welcome. Iām just pointing to the existence of an unusually strong intellectual pressure, perhaps combined with lots of focus on world-saving heroes and talk about āwhat should talented people do?ā
I think ambition is good, but I think we can find ways of encouraging ambition while also mitigating at least some of the debilitating intelligence-dysphoria many in our community suffer from.
Iām writing this in reaction to talking to three of my friends who suffer under the intellectual pressure they feel. (Note that the following are all about the intellectual pressure they get from EA, and not just in general due to academic life.)
Friend1: āEA makes me feel real dumb XD i think i feel out of place by being less intelligentā
_
Friend2: āIām not worried that Iām not smart, but I am worried that I am not smart enough to meet a certain threshold that is required for me to do the things I want to do. ā¦ I think I have very low odds of achieving things I deeply want to achieve. I think that is at least partially responsible for me being as extremely uncomfortable about my intelligence as I am, and not being able to snap out of it.ā
_
Me: āDo you ever refrain from trying to contribute intellectually because you worry about taking up more attention than itās worth?ā
Friend3: āhmm, not really for that reason. because Iām afraid my contribution will be wrong or make me look stupid. wrong in a way that reflects negatively on meāstupid errors, revealing intellectual or character weakness.
_
Some of this is a natural and unavoidable result of the large focus EA places on intellectual labour, but I think itās worse than it needs to be. I think some effort to instil some āordinary EA dignityā into our culture wouldnāt hurt. I might have a skewed sample, however.
And to respond to your question about what I meant by āmenial labourā. I was being poetic. I just mean that I feel like EA places a lot of focus on the very most high-status jobs, and Iāve heard friends despairing for having to āsettleā for anything less. I sense that this type of writing might not be the norm for EA shortform, but I wasnāt sure.
My experience as a non-PhD who dropped out of EA things for two years before returning is that I felt welcome and accepted when I started showing up in EA spaces again. And now that Iāve been at CEA for three years, I still spend a lot of my time talking to and helping out people who are just getting started and donāt have any great credentials or accomplishments; I hope that Iām not putting pressure on them when I do this.
That said, every personās experience is unique, and some people have certainly felt this kind of pressure, whether self-imposed as a result of perceived community norms or thrust upon them by people who were rude or dismissive at some point. And thatās clearly awful ā people shouldnāt be made to feel this way in general, and itās especially galling to hear about it sometimes happening within EA.
My impression is that few of these rude or dismissive people are themselves highly invested in the community, but my impression may be skewed by the relationships Iāve built with various highly invested people in the job I now have.
Lots of people with pretty normal backgrounds have clearly had enormous impact (too many examples to list!). And within the EA spaces I frequent, thereās a lot of interest and excitement about people sharing their stories of joining the movement, even if those people donāt have any special credentials. The most prominent example of this might be Giving What We Can.
I donāt understand the āmenial laborā point; the most common jobs for people in the broader EA community are very white-collar (programmers, lawyers, teachers...) What did you mean by that?
Personally, the way I view āordinary folk dignityā in EA is through something I call āthe airplane testā. If I sat next to someone on an airplane and saw them reading Doing Good Better, and they seemed excited about EA when I talked to them, Iād be very happy to have met them, even if they didnāt have any special ambitions beyond finding a good charity and making occasional donations. There arenāt many people in the world who share our unusual collection of values; every new person is precious.
Nono, Iām not trying to point to a problem of EAs trying to make others feel unwelcome or dumb. I think EA is extremely kind, and almost universally tries hard to make people feel welcome. Iām just pointing to the existence of an unusually strong intellectual pressure, perhaps combined with lots of focus on world-saving heroes and talk about āwhat should talented people do?ā
I think ambition is good, but I think we can find ways of encouraging ambition while also mitigating at least some of the debilitating intelligence-dysphoria many in our community suffer from.
Iām writing this in reaction to talking to three of my friends who suffer under the intellectual pressure they feel. (Note that the following are all about the intellectual pressure they get from EA, and not just in general due to academic life.)
Friend1: āEA makes me feel real dumb XD i think i feel out of place by being less intelligentā
_
Friend2: āIām not worried that Iām not smart, but I am worried that I am not smart enough to meet a certain threshold that is required for me to do the things I want to do. ā¦ I think I have very low odds of achieving things I deeply want to achieve. I think that is at least partially responsible for me being as extremely uncomfortable about my intelligence as I am, and not being able to snap out of it.ā
_
Me: āDo you ever refrain from trying to contribute intellectually because you worry about taking up more attention than itās worth?ā
Friend3: āhmm, not really for that reason. because Iām afraid my contribution will be wrong or make me look stupid. wrong in a way that reflects negatively on meāstupid errors, revealing intellectual or character weakness.
_
Some of this is a natural and unavoidable result of the large focus EA places on intellectual labour, but I think itās worse than it needs to be. I think some effort to instil some āordinary EA dignityā into our culture wouldnāt hurt. I might have a skewed sample, however.
And to respond to your question about what I meant by āmenial labourā. I was being poetic. I just mean that I feel like EA places a lot of focus on the very most high-status jobs, and Iāve heard friends despairing for having to āsettleā for anything less. I sense that this type of writing might not be the norm for EA shortform, but I wasnāt sure.