I really enjoyed this post, thank you! As a non-STEM-y person in EA, I relate to lots of this. I’ve picked up a lot of the ‘language of EA’ - and indeed one of things I like about EA is that I’ve learnt lots of STEM-y concepts from it! - but I did in fact initially ‘bounce off’ EA, and may never have got involved if I hadn’t continued to hear about it. I’ve also worried about people unfairly dismissing me because the ‘point’ of my field (ancient philosophy) is not obvious to STEM-y EAs.
A note on ‘assessing promisingness’: a recent forum post on Introductory Fellowships mentioned that at some universities, organizers sort fellows into cohorts according to perceived ‘promisingness’. This bothered me. I think part of what bothered me was egalitarian intuitions, but part of it was a consciousness that I might be unfairly assessed as ‘unpromising’ because my capacities and background are less legibly useful to EAs than others.
I really enjoyed this post, thank you! As a non-STEM-y person in EA, I relate to lots of this. I’ve picked up a lot of the ‘language of EA’ - and indeed one of things I like about EA is that I’ve learnt lots of STEM-y concepts from it! - but I did in fact initially ‘bounce off’ EA, and may never have got involved if I hadn’t continued to hear about it. I’ve also worried about people unfairly dismissing me because the ‘point’ of my field (ancient philosophy) is not obvious to STEM-y EAs.
A note on ‘assessing promisingness’: a recent forum post on Introductory Fellowships mentioned that at some universities, organizers sort fellows into cohorts according to perceived ‘promisingness’. This bothered me. I think part of what bothered me was egalitarian intuitions, but part of it was a consciousness that I might be unfairly assessed as ‘unpromising’ because my capacities and background are less legibly useful to EAs than others.