It’s not sufficient reason to think that low-cost hubs are higher value than additional high-cost hubs, but it is (I think) sufficient reason to think that whether or not EAs are working towards more hubs in higher cost countries, it would still be good to also be moving towards having at least one low-cost hub.
I have greater personal interest in low cost hubs, and I suspect that getting the first low-cost hub will be unusually high value (for reasons in some of the discussions on facebook/in person which I will write up properly at some point), so that’s what I’m focusing on here. I do not intend to crowd out or compete with efforts towards more high-cost locations, I see those as having a quite different set of benefits which I’m not very confident in my ability to evaluate the impact of (since it depends massively on locations I don’t know at all well, unlike the low-cost one which would attract people from across the globe). I would be happy to disambiguate by using a different name if the people working towards high-cost hubs want “New EA Hub”.
I don’t think this counts as sufficient reason. You need to list all of the (major) pro-and-con-considerations and weigh them up against each other in order to show that a low-cost EA hub is better than another one in a developed country.
Evan’s comments below are interesting, though.
It’s not sufficient reason to think that low-cost hubs are higher value than additional high-cost hubs, but it is (I think) sufficient reason to think that whether or not EAs are working towards more hubs in higher cost countries, it would still be good to also be moving towards having at least one low-cost hub.
I have greater personal interest in low cost hubs, and I suspect that getting the first low-cost hub will be unusually high value (for reasons in some of the discussions on facebook/in person which I will write up properly at some point), so that’s what I’m focusing on here. I do not intend to crowd out or compete with efforts towards more high-cost locations, I see those as having a quite different set of benefits which I’m not very confident in my ability to evaluate the impact of (since it depends massively on locations I don’t know at all well, unlike the low-cost one which would attract people from across the globe). I would be happy to disambiguate by using a different name if the people working towards high-cost hubs want “New EA Hub”.