Thanks, I thought this was a thoughtful post. I largely agree with the empirical analysis—that EA relies a lot on personal connections. Normatively, I’m a bit more positive to the current approach, though. For instance, I think it can make it easier to make fast, low-cost decisions. It can also help you find good projects.
Thanks Stefan! I agree with those strengths of personal connections, and I think there are many others. I mainly tried to argue that there are negative consequences as well, and that the negatives might outweigh the positives at some level of use. Did any of the problems I mentioned in the post strike you as wrong? (Either you think they don’t tend to arise from reliance on personal connections, or you think they’re not important problems even if they do arise?)
Something that didn’t strike me as wrong, but as something worth reflecting more on, is your analysis of the tension between reliance on personal connections and high rates of movement growth. You take this to be a reason for relying on personal connections less, but one may argue it is a reason for growing more slowly.
Another point bearing in mind is that your (correct) observation that many EA orgs do not take general applications may itself be (limited) evidence against your thesis. For example, the Future Fund has made a special effort to test a variety of funding models, and so far they have found that their regranting program (which relies on personal connections) has delivered significantly better results than the open call applications. As the FF team writes,
We thought that maybe there was a range of people who aren’t on our radar yet (e.g., tech founder types who have read The Precipice) who would be interested in launching projects in our areas of interest if we had accessible explanations of what we were hoping for, distributed the call widely, and made the funding process easy. But we didn’t really get much of that. Instead, most of the applications we were interested in came from people who were already working in our areas of interest and/or from the effective altruism community. So this part of the experiment performed below our expectations.
Of course, this is by no means decisive evidence, but it lends some support to the hypothesis that EA may be relying significantly on personal connections not because it has neglected alternative models, but because it has tested them and found them wanting.
tension between reliance on personal connections and high rates of movement growth. You take this to be a reason for relying on personal connections less, but one may argue it is a reason for growing more slowly.
I completely agree! I think probably some combination is best, and/or it could differ between subcommunities.
Also thanks for pointing out the FTX Future Fund’s experience, I’d forgotten about that. I completely agree that this is evidence against my hypothesis, specifically in the case of grantee-grantor relationships.
Thanks, I thought this was a thoughtful post. I largely agree with the empirical analysis—that EA relies a lot on personal connections. Normatively, I’m a bit more positive to the current approach, though. For instance, I think it can make it easier to make fast, low-cost decisions. It can also help you find good projects.
Thanks Stefan! I agree with those strengths of personal connections, and I think there are many others. I mainly tried to argue that there are negative consequences as well, and that the negatives might outweigh the positives at some level of use. Did any of the problems I mentioned in the post strike you as wrong? (Either you think they don’t tend to arise from reliance on personal connections, or you think they’re not important problems even if they do arise?)
Something that didn’t strike me as wrong, but as something worth reflecting more on, is your analysis of the tension between reliance on personal connections and high rates of movement growth. You take this to be a reason for relying on personal connections less, but one may argue it is a reason for growing more slowly.
Another point bearing in mind is that your (correct) observation that many EA orgs do not take general applications may itself be (limited) evidence against your thesis. For example, the Future Fund has made a special effort to test a variety of funding models, and so far they have found that their regranting program (which relies on personal connections) has delivered significantly better results than the open call applications. As the FF team writes,
Of course, this is by no means decisive evidence, but it lends some support to the hypothesis that EA may be relying significantly on personal connections not because it has neglected alternative models, but because it has tested them and found them wanting.
I completely agree! I think probably some combination is best, and/or it could differ between subcommunities.
Also thanks for pointing out the FTX Future Fund’s experience, I’d forgotten about that. I completely agree that this is evidence against my hypothesis, specifically in the case of grantee-grantor relationships.