People have been having similar thoughts to yours for many years, including myself. Navigating through EA epistemic currents is treacherous. To be sure, so is navigating epistemic currents in lots of other environments, including the “default” environment for most people. But EA is sometimes presented as being “neutral” in certain ways, so it feels jarring to see that it is clearly not.
Nearly everyone I know who has been around EA long enough to do things like run a university group eventually confronts the fact that their beliefs have been shaped socially by the community in ways that are hard to understand, including by people paid to shape your beliefs. It’s challenging to know what to do in light of that. Some people reject EA. Others, like you, take breaks to figure things out more for themselves. And others press on, while trying to course correct some. Many try to create more emotional distance, regardless of what they do. There’s not really an obvious answer, and I don’t feel I’ve figured it fully out myself. All this is to just say: you’re not alone. If you or anyone else reading this wants to talk, I’m here.
Finally, I really like this related post, as well as this comment on it. When I ran the Yale EA in depth fellowship, I assigned it as a reading.
Sorry not to weigh in on the object-level parts about university groups and what you think they should do differently, but as I’ve graduated I’m no longer a community builder so I’m somewhat less interested in weighing in on that.
People have been having similar thoughts to yours for many years, including myself. Navigating through EA epistemic currents is treacherous. To be sure, so is navigating epistemic currents in lots of other environments, including the “default” environment for most people. But EA is sometimes presented as being “neutral” in certain ways, so it feels jarring to see that it is clearly not.
Nearly everyone I know who has been around EA long enough to do things like run a university group eventually confronts the fact that their beliefs have been shaped socially by the community in ways that are hard to understand, including by people paid to shape your beliefs. It’s challenging to know what to do in light of that. Some people reject EA. Others, like you, take breaks to figure things out more for themselves. And others press on, while trying to course correct some. Many try to create more emotional distance, regardless of what they do. There’s not really an obvious answer, and I don’t feel I’ve figured it fully out myself. All this is to just say: you’re not alone. If you or anyone else reading this wants to talk, I’m here.
Finally, I really like this related post, as well as this comment on it. When I ran the Yale EA in depth fellowship, I assigned it as a reading.
Sorry not to weigh in on the object-level parts about university groups and what you think they should do differently, but as I’ve graduated I’m no longer a community builder so I’m somewhat less interested in weighing in on that.