A related stream of thoughts related to status in EA that I had the other day:
I had the vague impression that some EAs I know feel like they get too little validation from the broader and more local EA communities, like too little appreciation and acknowledgement for their work and for them being part of broader EA project. And I felt like that’s pretty sad because making people feel more socially valued seems not very costly at current margins:
Tell people more often you appreciate their work/engagement.
This doesn’t mean you think the work is particularly impactful, or the best that this person could be doing. Just feel and express some gratitude that somebody is trying to do something good in the world, and tries to be thoughtful about how to do as much as they can.
E.g. just saying “Thanks for thinking about this, I think that’s an important issue.” before giving critical feedback on a forum post would probably make people feel appreciated, while I expect just voicing the criticism can often feel dismissive.
Just reacting somehow to people’s output often feels like a helpful and validating gesture, like saying “Interesting post!” or reacting with some Emoji to a Slack post.
Have more spaces where people can find friends and form small sub-communities, e.g. local EA retreats seem good for that, local EA groups, online spaces of sub-communities.
Maybe? some people in EA could look out a bit more for people who might not naturally receive much social validation for random reasons, such as being shy, new to a group, not having as much to contribute to work on important problems (yet), etc.
A related stream of thoughts related to status in EA that I had the other day:
I had the vague impression that some EAs I know feel like they get too little validation from the broader and more local EA communities, like too little appreciation and acknowledgement for their work and for them being part of broader EA project. And I felt like that’s pretty sad because making people feel more socially valued seems not very costly at current margins:
Tell people more often you appreciate their work/engagement.
This doesn’t mean you think the work is particularly impactful, or the best that this person could be doing. Just feel and express some gratitude that somebody is trying to do something good in the world, and tries to be thoughtful about how to do as much as they can.
E.g. just saying “Thanks for thinking about this, I think that’s an important issue.” before giving critical feedback on a forum post would probably make people feel appreciated, while I expect just voicing the criticism can often feel dismissive.
Just reacting somehow to people’s output often feels like a helpful and validating gesture, like saying “Interesting post!” or reacting with some Emoji to a Slack post.
Have more spaces where people can find friends and form small sub-communities, e.g. local EA retreats seem good for that, local EA groups, online spaces of sub-communities.
Maybe? some people in EA could look out a bit more for people who might not naturally receive much social validation for random reasons, such as being shy, new to a group, not having as much to contribute to work on important problems (yet), etc.