Edit: So this has got a very negative reaction, including (I think) multiple strong disagreevotes. I notice I’m a bit confused why, I don’t recognise anything in the post that is beyond the pale? Maybe people think I’m piling on or trying to persuade rather than inform, though I may well have got the balance wrong. Minds are changed through discussion, disagreement, and debate—so I’d like to encourage the downvoters to reply (or DM me privately, if you prefer), as I’m not sure why people disagree, it’s not clear where I made a mistake (if any) and how much I ought to update my beliefs.
My impression is that Will often finds it stressful and unpleasant to do community leadership stuff, media, talk to VIPs etc. He often seems to do it out of a sense of duty (i.e. belief that it’s the most impactful thing). His ideal lifestyle would be more like being an academic.
This makes a lot of sense to me intuitively, and I’d be pretty confident that Will would probably be most effective while being happy, unstressed, and doing what he likes and is good at—academic philosophy! It seems very reminiscent to me of stories of rank-and-file EAs who end up doing things that they aren’t especially motivated by, or especially exceptional at, because of a sense of duty that seems counterproductive.
I guess the update I think ought to happen is that Will trading off academic work to do community building / organisational leadership may not have been correct? Of course, hindsight is 20-20 and all that. But it seems plausible, and I’d be interested to hear the community’s opinion.
In any case, it seems that a good next step would be to find people in the community who are good at running organisations and willing to the do the community-leadership/public facing stuff, so we can remove the stress from Will and let him contribute in the academic sphere? The EA Good Governance Project seems like a promising thing to track in this area.
I didn’t vote either way on your comment, but I take the disagreement to be people thinking (a) Will’s community building work was the right choice given what he and others knew then and/or (b) finding people “who are good at running organisations and willing to the do the community-leadership/public facing stuff” is really hard.
Edit: So this has got a very negative reaction, including (I think) multiple strong disagreevotes. I notice I’m a bit confused why, I don’t recognise anything in the post that is beyond the pale? Maybe people think I’m piling on or trying to persuade rather than inform, though I may well have got the balance wrong. Minds are changed through discussion, disagreement, and debate—so I’d like to encourage the downvoters to reply (or DM me privately, if you prefer), as I’m not sure why people disagree, it’s not clear where I made a mistake (if any) and how much I ought to update my beliefs.
This makes a lot of sense to me intuitively, and I’d be pretty confident that Will would probably be most effective while being happy, unstressed, and doing what he likes and is good at—academic philosophy! It seems very reminiscent to me of stories of rank-and-file EAs who end up doing things that they aren’t especially motivated by, or especially exceptional at, because of a sense of duty that seems counterproductive.
I guess the update I think ought to happen is that Will trading off academic work to do community building / organisational leadership may not have been correct? Of course, hindsight is 20-20 and all that. But it seems plausible, and I’d be interested to hear the community’s opinion.
In any case, it seems that a good next step would be to find people in the community who are good at running organisations and willing to the do the community-leadership/public facing stuff, so we can remove the stress from Will and let him contribute in the academic sphere? The EA Good Governance Project seems like a promising thing to track in this area.
I didn’t vote either way on your comment, but I take the disagreement to be people thinking (a) Will’s community building work was the right choice given what he and others knew then and/or (b) finding people “who are good at running organisations and willing to the do the community-leadership/public facing stuff” is really hard.