I think your experience matches what most people interested in EA actually do, the vast majority aren’t deeply involved in the ‘community’ year-round. The EA frameworks and networks tend to be most valuable at specific decision points (career/cause changes, donation decisions) or if you work in niche areas like meta-EA or cause incubation.
After a few years, most people find their value shifts to specific cause communities (as you noted) or other interest-based networks. I think it might actually be a bad sign if there was more expectation of people being very involved as soon as they hear about EA and forever more.
I’d also push back on Hanson’s characterisation, which was more accurate at the time it was written but less so now. The average age continues rising (mean 32.4 years old, median 31) and more than 75% aren’t students.
There are people now with 15+ years of EA engagement in senior positions across business, tech and government, and there are numerous, increasingly professional and sizable, organisations inspired by EA ideas.
The methods within EA differ markedly from typical youth movements, there’s minimal focus on protests or awareness-raising except where it’s seemingly more strategic within specific cause areas.
My impression is that if OP did want to write specialist blogposts etc. they would be able to do that (probably even better placed than a younger person, given their experience). (And conversely, 18 year olds who don’t want to do specialist work or get involved in a social scene don’t have that many points of attachment.)
I think your experience matches what most people interested in EA actually do, the vast majority aren’t deeply involved in the ‘community’ year-round. The EA frameworks and networks tend to be most valuable at specific decision points (career/cause changes, donation decisions) or if you work in niche areas like meta-EA or cause incubation.
After a few years, most people find their value shifts to specific cause communities (as you noted) or other interest-based networks. I think it might actually be a bad sign if there was more expectation of people being very involved as soon as they hear about EA and forever more.
I’d also push back on Hanson’s characterisation, which was more accurate at the time it was written but less so now. The average age continues rising (mean 32.4 years old, median 31) and more than 75% aren’t students.
There are people now with 15+ years of EA engagement in senior positions across business, tech and government, and there are numerous, increasingly professional and sizable, organisations inspired by EA ideas.
The methods within EA differ markedly from typical youth movements, there’s minimal focus on protests or awareness-raising except where it’s seemingly more strategic within specific cause areas.
+1, this seems more like a Task Y problem.
My impression is that if OP did want to write specialist blogposts etc. they would be able to do that (probably even better placed than a younger person, given their experience). (And conversely, 18 year olds who don’t want to do specialist work or get involved in a social scene don’t have that many points of attachment.)