Supporting a global EA community is expensive—e.g flying people to conferences in the US and UK from places like South Africa and India is often ~4X the price of local attendees travel costs; we have to sponsor travel and work visas.
Well, it is, but only as long as you assume that all conferences should be held in the US and the UK in the first place (for discussions on this, see this and this).
Hi MvK—just wanted to make one clarification and point out some problems I see with your comment:
Clarification: When I point to conferences in the UK and US, I’m thinking specifically of EAGs (rather than EAGxs or retreats). These happen in the ‘power centres’ of the EA community, and people who can choose to attend EAGs are generally the most highly engaged or influential EAs in the community.
Most EA conferences are already in places other than the US or UK (these are the ~10 EAGxs that happen every year). In this way, we technically already do the most affordable thing whilst trying to have global representation at EAGs (which have historically always been in the US or UK). If we were to have an EAG in e.g. India, we’d spend way more on travel expenses flying US, UK, and EU attendees to the conference.
So I think the underlying assumption you meant to point out is something like “assuming that we need to have a globally representative pool of attendees at every conference in the US or UK (i.e. EAGs)”.
Of course, we could not do this, but I think this makes things worse, not better, when it comes to making the global EA community feel inclusive. It’d lead to the majority of senior/experienced/influential EAs only to attend US and UK conferences, whilst other conferences would only attract local EAs, and there’d be less knowledge transfer and fewer opportunities for those outside of the major EA hubs in the US and UK
Well, it is, but only as long as you assume that all conferences should be held in the US and the UK in the first place (for discussions on this, see this and this).
Hi MvK—just wanted to make one clarification and point out some problems I see with your comment:
Clarification: When I point to conferences in the UK and US, I’m thinking specifically of EAGs (rather than EAGxs or retreats). These happen in the ‘power centres’ of the EA community, and people who can choose to attend EAGs are generally the most highly engaged or influential EAs in the community.
Most EA conferences are already in places other than the US or UK (these are the ~10 EAGxs that happen every year). In this way, we technically already do the most affordable thing whilst trying to have global representation at EAGs (which have historically always been in the US or UK). If we were to have an EAG in e.g. India, we’d spend way more on travel expenses flying US, UK, and EU attendees to the conference.
So I think the underlying assumption you meant to point out is something like “assuming that we need to have a globally representative pool of attendees at every conference in the US or UK (i.e. EAGs)”.
Of course, we could not do this, but I think this makes things worse, not better, when it comes to making the global EA community feel inclusive. It’d lead to the majority of senior/experienced/influential EAs only to attend US and UK conferences, whilst other conferences would only attract local EAs, and there’d be less knowledge transfer and fewer opportunities for those outside of the major EA hubs in the US and UK