I generally agree that there need to be hubs located outside of the US, and that possibly, this needs to be prioritized. However, I strongly disagree with the premise that we need to choose any single location for an EA hub and reject all others. I think that working on multiple types of hubs in different locations is the way to go. If there are communities within the US who might want to support an EA hub that’s easily accessible, yet outside of the core EA hub locations, I fully support this. And if you aren’t a US citizen, you can come and spend a few months in the US without a work permit, I don’t think my post suggested we want people to move there forever or to immigrate to the US in order to come and utilize the space.
With that said, I am all for supporting efforts to create hubs outside of the US though and appreciate you stressing this out.
Hey, appreciate your response. Perhaps we should discuss the meaning of the word “hub” here? To me, it is about 1) Having enough EAs to establish beneficial network effects, and 2) to have a reason why the EAs living there aren’t constantly incentivised to move elsewhere (which also means they can live and and work there if they choose)
I think that your value proposition of a beautiful, cheap location for remote work is a great reason for a hub! This fulfills condition 2). Then, having enough people fulfills 1).
However, network effects cause increasing returns to moving there. This means if there are two hubs (of the same type—here “good cheap remote hub”) that a person might move to, they will all else equal choose to move to the larger one. This means that there will tend to be only one hub of each kind—a lock in effect.
Given that about 30% of all EAs are from the US, and the ~2 existing hubs there are quite expensive, I think your hub has a good chance of succeeding!
However, I think that would result in the above lock-in effect. If so, there might be as many people who live in your northeast US hub (~30% of EAs outside the US and UK) who would like to move there, but can’t (easily) because of US immigration. Having a hub that offered the same value proposition ( condition 2) ) but in a different jurisdiction would have been strictly better.
On the other hand, if you can change the US immigration rules (which are btw definitely bad for the US!!), please do!
Hey Max, thanks a lot for the response! I don’t think I generally disagree with any of the points you are mentioning above.
It is important to stress we are not proposing people move to Sandusky, especially at this stage it is about providing a place to run retreats, come and work remotely for a few weeks/months, run fellowship, focus on getting some deep work done while being able to take part in what Sandusky has to offer. This means people from abroad might still be able to come and take part (I, for example, don’t have US citizenship).
Long term, I would love to work on projects to establish hubs outside of the US (being Czech, I see the benefits of having a thriving EA community outside of the US!). This project, however, is a great way to learn about setting up such places, knowledge I will be able to use when working on future projects. For me, this project is as much about learning as it is about Sandusky as a place in particular, which provides a great platform to test ideas. We are hoping to document the process to create a ‘hub-creation package’ of some sort to help make such projects run more smoothly every time a new one happens.
I hope this explains my thinking a little bit, your comments definitely got me thinking, thanks a lot for bringing them up! Would be happy to discuss this further on a call if you thought that might be helpful.
Hi Max, thanks a lot for this comment!
I generally agree that there need to be hubs located outside of the US, and that possibly, this needs to be prioritized. However, I strongly disagree with the premise that we need to choose any single location for an EA hub and reject all others. I think that working on multiple types of hubs in different locations is the way to go. If there are communities within the US who might want to support an EA hub that’s easily accessible, yet outside of the core EA hub locations, I fully support this. And if you aren’t a US citizen, you can come and spend a few months in the US without a work permit, I don’t think my post suggested we want people to move there forever or to immigrate to the US in order to come and utilize the space.
With that said, I am all for supporting efforts to create hubs outside of the US though and appreciate you stressing this out.
Hey, appreciate your response. Perhaps we should discuss the meaning of the word “hub” here? To me, it is about 1) Having enough EAs to establish beneficial network effects, and 2) to have a reason why the EAs living there aren’t constantly incentivised to move elsewhere (which also means they can live and and work there if they choose)
I think that your value proposition of a beautiful, cheap location for remote work is a great reason for a hub! This fulfills condition 2). Then, having enough people fulfills 1).
However, network effects cause increasing returns to moving there. This means if there are two hubs (of the same type—here “good cheap remote hub”) that a person might move to, they will all else equal choose to move to the larger one. This means that there will tend to be only one hub of each kind—a lock in effect.
Given that about 30% of all EAs are from the US, and the ~2 existing hubs there are quite expensive, I think your hub has a good chance of succeeding!
However, I think that would result in the above lock-in effect. If so, there might be as many people who live in your northeast US hub (~30% of EAs outside the US and UK) who would like to move there, but can’t (easily) because of US immigration. Having a hub that offered the same value proposition ( condition 2) ) but in a different jurisdiction would have been strictly better.
On the other hand, if you can change the US immigration rules (which are btw definitely bad for the US!!), please do!
Hey Max, thanks a lot for the response! I don’t think I generally disagree with any of the points you are mentioning above.
It is important to stress we are not proposing people move to Sandusky, especially at this stage it is about providing a place to run retreats, come and work remotely for a few weeks/months, run fellowship, focus on getting some deep work done while being able to take part in what Sandusky has to offer. This means people from abroad might still be able to come and take part (I, for example, don’t have US citizenship).
Long term, I would love to work on projects to establish hubs outside of the US (being Czech, I see the benefits of having a thriving EA community outside of the US!). This project, however, is a great way to learn about setting up such places, knowledge I will be able to use when working on future projects. For me, this project is as much about learning as it is about Sandusky as a place in particular, which provides a great platform to test ideas. We are hoping to document the process to create a ‘hub-creation package’ of some sort to help make such projects run more smoothly every time a new one happens.
I hope this explains my thinking a little bit, your comments definitely got me thinking, thanks a lot for bringing them up! Would be happy to discuss this further on a call if you thought that might be helpful.