I think there is also something vaguely similar to the Matthew effect that goes on. I’m not particularly confident in this, and I’m not sure that I fully endorse it.
People who got involved X years ago have gotten a network, specialized skills, and knowledge that is unavailable to others (or at least is harder for others to get). They had the ‘first mover advantage.’ Over years of attending many conferences (including those that some people get automatic or nearly-automatic admissions to as a result of their employer), retreats, building a reputation, and just random “hallway conversations” an initially small gap has become quite wide.
The simplest example in my mind is to imagine someone who had been involved in EA since 2014-2019 recommending that you upskill by taking a workshop from CFAR, or that you attend an EAG. But CFAR doesn’t offer workshops anymore, so that option for training/upskilling/networking is literally not available anymore, and you likely won’t get accepted to EAG if you don’t look impressive enough (according to particular criteria).
you likely won’t get accepted to EAG if you don’t look impressive enough
While I think this sort of true, reading the linked article might give you the impression the bar is much higher than it is?
I know many people who’ve recently been accepted to EA conferences with much less impressive or EA-relevant backgrounds. If it were just this I would say that it’s hard to make a perfect process and there will always be some false positives and false negatives.
But:
There’s something important missing from their description of their experience. They wrote, responding Amy, the head of the CEA Events team, “from our conversation, I came to understand that there is a distinct reason that could be pointed to for my rejection from EAG” but then they don’t disclose that reason and, citing privacy, neither will Amy.
Yeah, admissions is complicated. And writing “you likely won’t get accepted to EAG if you don’t look impressive enough” is a vast simplification. In reality I imagine that it is some nebulous combination of traditional impressiveness, EA-specific impressiveness, and potential future contribution (all from the perspective of the admissions team). But like many things in life, I’m guessing that the decisions often come down to judgement calls, rather than strict and clear decision tree.
In a vague parallel to university admissions, there isn’t a simply standard or algorithm (such as “a function of high school grades and standardized test scores”), and instead it is really a judgement call for each individual applicant. In another parallel to university admissions, sometimes the star trombone player is graduating and the school really needs a good trombone player. I imagine similarly, there are priorities for EA conferences that aren’t transparent/visible to the public: maybe the person doing X will be resigning soon, so there is a big push to nurture more talent doing X to find a replacement.
The way I’ve written it doesn’t sit right, or the dynamic itself?
I think your representation doesn’t seem correct to me, though I can’t figure out how it’s wrong.
Maybe:
It seems like these are talented people with a lot of experience
It is not surprising they have often been in the movement for a while—trust takes time to build—hence there are fewer candidates
I would like better elites but it’s not clear to me how we get them, the process of choosing people who have power is just really difficult.
I think there is also something vaguely similar to the Matthew effect that goes on. I’m not particularly confident in this, and I’m not sure that I fully endorse it.
People who got involved X years ago have gotten a network, specialized skills, and knowledge that is unavailable to others (or at least is harder for others to get). They had the ‘first mover advantage.’ Over years of attending many conferences (including those that some people get automatic or nearly-automatic admissions to as a result of their employer), retreats, building a reputation, and just random “hallway conversations” an initially small gap has become quite wide.
The simplest example in my mind is to imagine someone who had been involved in EA since 2014-2019 recommending that you upskill by taking a workshop from CFAR, or that you attend an EAG. But CFAR doesn’t offer workshops anymore, so that option for training/upskilling/networking is literally not available anymore, and you likely won’t get accepted to EAG if you don’t look impressive enough (according to particular criteria).
While I think this sort of true, reading the linked article might give you the impression the bar is much higher than it is?
I know many people who’ve recently been accepted to EA conferences with much less impressive or EA-relevant backgrounds. If it were just this I would say that it’s hard to make a perfect process and there will always be some false positives and false negatives.
But:
There’s something important missing from their description of their experience. They wrote, responding Amy, the head of the CEA Events team, “from our conversation, I came to understand that there is a distinct reason that could be pointed to for my rejection from EAG” but then they don’t disclose that reason and, citing privacy, neither will Amy.
Yeah, admissions is complicated. And writing “you likely won’t get accepted to EAG if you don’t look impressive enough” is a vast simplification. In reality I imagine that it is some nebulous combination of traditional impressiveness, EA-specific impressiveness, and potential future contribution (all from the perspective of the admissions team). But like many things in life, I’m guessing that the decisions often come down to judgement calls, rather than strict and clear decision tree.
In a vague parallel to university admissions, there isn’t a simply standard or algorithm (such as “a function of high school grades and standardized test scores”), and instead it is really a judgement call for each individual applicant. In another parallel to university admissions, sometimes the star trombone player is graduating and the school really needs a good trombone player. I imagine similarly, there are priorities for EA conferences that aren’t transparent/visible to the public: maybe the person doing X will be resigning soon, so there is a big push to nurture more talent doing X to find a replacement.