Seems to me that scarcity can also be grift-inducing, e.g. if a tech company only hires the very top performers on its interview, it might find that most hires are people who looked up the questions beforehand and rehearsed the answers. But if the company hires any solid performer, that doesn’t induce a rehearsal arms race—if it’s possible to get hired without rehearsing, some people will value their integrity enough to do this.
The CEEALAR model is interesting because it combines a high admission rate with low salaries. You’re living with EAs in an undesirable city, eating vegan food, and getting paid peanuts. This seems unattractive to professional grifters, but it might be attractive to deadbeat grifters. Deadbeat grifters seem like a better problem to have since they’re less sophisticated and less ambitious on average.
Another CEEALAR thing: living with someone helps you get to know them. It’s easier to put up a facade for a funder than for your roommates.
...three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is why so many people meet their lifelong friends in college, she added.
Source. When I was at CEEALAR, it seemed to me like the “college dorm” atmosphere was generating a lot of social capital for the EA movement.
I don’t think CEEALAR is perfect (and I also left years ago so it may have changed). But the overall idea seems good to iterate on. People have objected in the past because of PR weirdness, but maybe that’s what we need to dissuade the most dangerous sort of grifter.
Seems to me that scarcity can also be grift-inducing, e.g. if a tech company only hires the very top performers on its interview, it might find that most hires are people who looked up the questions beforehand and rehearsed the answers. But if the company hires any solid performer, that doesn’t induce a rehearsal arms race—if it’s possible to get hired without rehearsing, some people will value their integrity enough to do this.
The CEEALAR model is interesting because it combines a high admission rate with low salaries. You’re living with EAs in an undesirable city, eating vegan food, and getting paid peanuts. This seems unattractive to professional grifters, but it might be attractive to deadbeat grifters. Deadbeat grifters seem like a better problem to have since they’re less sophisticated and less ambitious on average.
Another CEEALAR thing: living with someone helps you get to know them. It’s easier to put up a facade for a funder than for your roommates.
Source. When I was at CEEALAR, it seemed to me like the “college dorm” atmosphere was generating a lot of social capital for the EA movement.
I don’t think CEEALAR is perfect (and I also left years ago so it may have changed). But the overall idea seems good to iterate on. People have objected in the past because of PR weirdness, but maybe that’s what we need to dissuade the most dangerous sort of grifter.