Thanks for writing this up. I agree with most of these points. However, not with the last one:
I think we should see “EA community building” as less valuable than before, if only because one of the biggest seeming success stories now seems to be a harm story. I think this concern applies to community building for specific issues as well.
If anything, I think the dangers and pitfalls of optimization you mention warrant different community building, not less. Specifically, I see two potential dangers to pulling resources out of community building:
Funded community builders would possibly have even stronger incentives to prioritize community growth over sustainable planning, accountability infrastructure, and community health. To my knowledge, CEA’s past funding policy incentivized community builders to goodhart on acquiring new talent and funds, at the cost of building sustainable network and structural capital, and at the cost of fostering constructive community norms and practices. As long as one avoided to visibly damage the EA brand or turn the very most talented individuals off, it just was financially unreasonable to pay much attention to these things. In other words, the financial incentives so far may have forced community builders into becoming the hard-core utilitarians you are concerned about. And accordingly, they were forced to be role models of hard-core utilitarianism for those they built community for. This may have contributed to EA orthodoxy pre-FTX collapse, where it seemed to me that hard-core utilitarianism was generally considered synonymous to value-alignedness/high status. I don’t expect this problem to get better if the bar for getting/remaining funded as a community builder gets higher—unless the metrics change significantly.
Access to informal networks would become even more crucial than it already is. If we take money out of community building, we apply optimization pressure away from welcomingness/having low entry barriers to the community. Even more of EA’s onboarding and mentorship than is already the case will be tied to informal networks. Junior community members will experience even stronger pressure to try and get invited to the right parties, impress the right people, to become friends and lovers with those who have money and power.
Accordingly, I suspect that the actual answer here is more professionalization, and into a different direction. Specifically:
Turning EA community building from a career stepstone into a long-term career, with proper training, financial security, and everything. (CEA already thought of this of course; I don’t find the relevant post.)
Having more (and more professionalized) community health infrastructure in national and local groups. For example, point people that community members actually know and can talk to in-person. CEA’s community health team is important, and for all I know, they are doing a fairly impressive job. But I think the bar for reaching out to community health people could be much lower than it currently is. For many community members, CEA’s team are just strangers on the internet, and I suspect that all too many new community members (i.e. those most vulnerable to power abuse/harassment/peer pressure) haven’t heard of them in the first place.
Creating stronger accountability structures in national and local groups, like a board of directors that oversees larger local groups’ work without being directly involved in it. (For example, EA Munich recently switched to a board structure, and we are working on that in Berlin ourselves.) For this to happen, we would need more experienced and committed people in community building. While technically, a board of directors can be staffed by volunteers entirely, withdrawing funding and prestige from EA community building will make it more difficult to get the necessary number of sufficiently experienced and committed people enrolled.
Thoughts, disagreement?
(Disclaimer on conflict of interest: I’m currently EA Berlin’s Community Coordinator and fundraising to turn that into a paid role.)
I have not thought much about this and do not know how far this applies to others (might be worth running a survey) but I very much appreciate the EA community. This is because I am somewhat cause agnostic but have a skillset that might be applied to different causes. Hence, it is very valuable for me to have some community that ties together all these different causes as it makes it easier for me to find work that I might have a good fit for helping out with. In a scenario where EA did not exist, only separate causes (although I think Holden Karnofsky only meant to make less investments in EA, not abandoning the project altogether) I would need to keep updated on perhaps 10 or more separate communities in order to come by relevant opportunities to help.
Thanks for writing this up. I agree with most of these points. However, not with the last one:
If anything, I think the dangers and pitfalls of optimization you mention warrant different community building, not less. Specifically, I see two potential dangers to pulling resources out of community building:
Funded community builders would possibly have even stronger incentives to prioritize community growth over sustainable planning, accountability infrastructure, and community health. To my knowledge, CEA’s past funding policy incentivized community builders to goodhart on acquiring new talent and funds, at the cost of building sustainable network and structural capital, and at the cost of fostering constructive community norms and practices. As long as one avoided to visibly damage the EA brand or turn the very most talented individuals off, it just was financially unreasonable to pay much attention to these things.
In other words, the financial incentives so far may have forced community builders into becoming the hard-core utilitarians you are concerned about. And accordingly, they were forced to be role models of hard-core utilitarianism for those they built community for. This may have contributed to EA orthodoxy pre-FTX collapse, where it seemed to me that hard-core utilitarianism was generally considered synonymous to value-alignedness/high status.
I don’t expect this problem to get better if the bar for getting/remaining funded as a community builder gets higher—unless the metrics change significantly.
Access to informal networks would become even more crucial than it already is. If we take money out of community building, we apply optimization pressure away from welcomingness/having low entry barriers to the community. Even more of EA’s onboarding and mentorship than is already the case will be tied to informal networks. Junior community members will experience even stronger pressure to try and get invited to the right parties, impress the right people, to become friends and lovers with those who have money and power.
Accordingly, I suspect that the actual answer here is more professionalization, and into a different direction. Specifically:
Turning EA community building from a career stepstone into a long-term career, with proper training, financial security, and everything. (CEA already thought of this of course; I don’t find the relevant post.)
Having more (and more professionalized) community health infrastructure in national and local groups. For example, point people that community members actually know and can talk to in-person.
CEA’s community health team is important, and for all I know, they are doing a fairly impressive job. But I think the bar for reaching out to community health people could be much lower than it currently is. For many community members, CEA’s team are just strangers on the internet, and I suspect that all too many new community members (i.e. those most vulnerable to power abuse/harassment/peer pressure) haven’t heard of them in the first place.
Creating stronger accountability structures in national and local groups, like a board of directors that oversees larger local groups’ work without being directly involved in it. (For example, EA Munich recently switched to a board structure, and we are working on that in Berlin ourselves.)
For this to happen, we would need more experienced and committed people in community building. While technically, a board of directors can be staffed by volunteers entirely, withdrawing funding and prestige from EA community building will make it more difficult to get the necessary number of sufficiently experienced and committed people enrolled.
Thoughts, disagreement?
(Disclaimer on conflict of interest: I’m currently EA Berlin’s Community Coordinator and fundraising to turn that into a paid role.)
I have not thought much about this and do not know how far this applies to others (might be worth running a survey) but I very much appreciate the EA community. This is because I am somewhat cause agnostic but have a skillset that might be applied to different causes. Hence, it is very valuable for me to have some community that ties together all these different causes as it makes it easier for me to find work that I might have a good fit for helping out with. In a scenario where EA did not exist, only separate causes (although I think Holden Karnofsky only meant to make less investments in EA, not abandoning the project altogether) I would need to keep updated on perhaps 10 or more separate communities in order to come by relevant opportunities to help.