Thanks for writing this up Ben. I largely agree with your comments.
I think that I most agree with your suggestion for what to do for community building in the future.
I think that we should try to focus on spreading our most useful ideas and insights as individuals and organisations with similar values rather than trying to get more people to adopt an EA identity and join the EA community.
I think that because having an EA community focus seems to create more challenges and promise fewer rewards than a focus on spreading ideas as individuals and organisations with similar values.
As an example of challenges, if someone has career questions and I refer them to 80,000 Hours and some other resources that could be helpful, then that probably raises no alarms. However, if I start talking about this EA community I am interested in that they should join it pattern matches to something more worrying (e.g., a cult) and puts some people off.
The grouping of people and organisations by their identification with EA also leads to all sorts of challenges with press (who suddenly have a target and suspicion about us) and guilt by brand association (like what happens every time a bad actor does something).
As an example of rewards—I think that our ideas might spread much more widely if not associated with any moral framework or set of values. Right now, I can imagine someone proposing some sort of cost-effectiveness assessment for a government project and people having a more negative response because they think that those are EA ideas (and thus associated with SBF/longtermism or whatever they find distasteful etc).
What I think this approach looks like for me is thinking and saying that I have been influenced by EA ideas and the community, but that it’s just one of several ideas and communities that I am interested/engaged with. Which is true.
From an outreach perspective, it means that I will rarely if ever suggest that people join the EA community in future. However, when relevant, I will connect people with resources, organisations, and meetups/events if I think it will be helpful/positive impact.
(I submitted the comment early by accident and someone disagree voted it. Just flagging so that they/others know. Feel free to disagree with the finished comment too, of course!)
Thanks for writing this up Ben. I largely agree with your comments.
I think that I most agree with your suggestion for what to do for community building in the future.
I think that we should try to focus on spreading our most useful ideas and insights as individuals and organisations with similar values rather than trying to get more people to adopt an EA identity and join the EA community.
I think that because having an EA community focus seems to create more challenges and promise fewer rewards than a focus on spreading ideas as individuals and organisations with similar values.
As an example of challenges, if someone has career questions and I refer them to 80,000 Hours and some other resources that could be helpful, then that probably raises no alarms. However, if I start talking about this EA community I am interested in that they should join it pattern matches to something more worrying (e.g., a cult) and puts some people off.
The grouping of people and organisations by their identification with EA also leads to all sorts of challenges with press (who suddenly have a target and suspicion about us) and guilt by brand association (like what happens every time a bad actor does something).
As an example of rewards—I think that our ideas might spread much more widely if not associated with any moral framework or set of values. Right now, I can imagine someone proposing some sort of cost-effectiveness assessment for a government project and people having a more negative response because they think that those are EA ideas (and thus associated with SBF/longtermism or whatever they find distasteful etc).
What I think this approach looks like for me is thinking and saying that I have been influenced by EA ideas and the community, but that it’s just one of several ideas and communities that I am interested/engaged with. Which is true.
From an outreach perspective, it means that I will rarely if ever suggest that people join the EA community in future. However, when relevant, I will connect people with resources, organisations, and meetups/events if I think it will be helpful/positive impact.
(I submitted the comment early by accident and someone disagree voted it. Just flagging so that they/others know. Feel free to disagree with the finished comment too, of course!)