The reversal test doesnât mean âif you donât think a charity for X is promising, you should be in favour of more ÂŹXâ. I may not find homeless shelters, education, or climate change charities promising, yet not want to move in the direction of greater homelessness, illiteracy, or pollution.
If (like me) youâd prefer EA to move in the direction of âprofessional associationâ rather than âsocial movementâ, this attitudeâs general recommendation to move away from communal living (generally not a feature of the former, given the emphasis on distinguishing between personal and professional lives) does pass the reversal test, as Iâd forecast having the same view even if the status quo was everyone already living in group house (or vice versa).
The reversal test doesnât mean âif you donât think a charity for X is promising, you should be in favour of more ÂŹXâ. I may not find homeless shelters, education, or climate change charities promising, yet not want to move in the direction of greater homelessness, illiteracy, or pollution.
Suppose youâre the newly appointed director of a large charitable foundation which has allocated its charitable giving in a somewhat random way. If youâre able to resist status quo bias, then usually, you will not find yourself keeping the amount allocated for a particular cause at exactly the level it was at originally. For example, if the foundation is currently giving to education charities, and you donât think those charities are very effective, then youâll reduce their funding. If you think those charities are very effective, then youâll increase their funding.
Now consider âhaving EAs live alone in apartments in expensive citiesâ as a cause area. Currently, the amount weâre spending on this area has been set in a somewhat random way. Therefore, if weâre able to resist status quo bias, we should probably either be moving it up or moving it down. We could move it up by creating a charity that pays EAs to live alone, or move it down by encouraging EAs to move to the EA Hotel. (Maybe creating a charity that pays EAs to live alone would be impractical or create perverse incentives or something, this is more of an âin principleâ intuition pump sort of an argument.)
Edit: With regard to the professionalism thing, my personal feelings on this are something like the last paragraph in this commentâI think itâd be good for some of us to be more professional in certain respects (e.g. Iâm supportive of EAs working to gain institutional legitimacy for EA cause areas), but the Hotel culture I observed feels mostly acceptable to me. Probably some mixture of not seeing much interpersonal drama while I was there, and expecting the Hotel residents will continue to be fairly young people who donât occupy positions of power (grad student housing comes to mind). FWIW, my personal experience is that the value of professionalism comes up more often in Blackpool EA conversations than Bay Area EA conversations. With the Bay Area, you may very well be paying more rent for a less professional culture. Just my anecdotal impressions.
I find this thought experiment really weird because I donât think EAs living together should be centrally managed. It seems really obvious to me that EA as a movement faces less risks when a few friends who met through EA decide to move in together, rather than when people apply to an âEA houseâ with social programmes where they donât know anyone.
Like, if a couple living in the EA Hotel break up, thereâs a good chance theyâll both continue to living there and itâll be very awkward. If youâre in a flatshare, Iâd expect one of them to move out ASAP. The social norms are just so different.
I agree it would surprise if EA happened upon the optimal cohabitation level (although perhaps not that surprising, given individuals can act by the lights of their best interest which may reasonably approximate the global optimum), yet I maintain the charitable intervention hypothetical is a poor intuition pump as most people would be dissuaded from âinterveningâ to push towards the âoptimal cohabitation levelâ for âin practiceâ reasonsâe.g. much larger potential side-effects of trying to twiddle this dial, preserving the norm of leaving people to manage their personal lives as they see best, etc.
Iâd probably want to suggest the optimal cohabitation level is below what we currently observe (e.g. besides the issue Khorton mentions, cohabitation with your employees/âbosses/âcolleagues or funder/âfundee seems to run predictable risks), yet be reluctant to âinterveneâ any further up the coercion hierarchy than expressing my reasons for caution.
The reversal test doesnât mean âif you donât think a charity for X is promising, you should be in favour of more ÂŹXâ. I may not find homeless shelters, education, or climate change charities promising, yet not want to move in the direction of greater homelessness, illiteracy, or pollution.
If (like me) youâd prefer EA to move in the direction of âprofessional associationâ rather than âsocial movementâ, this attitudeâs general recommendation to move away from communal living (generally not a feature of the former, given the emphasis on distinguishing between personal and professional lives) does pass the reversal test, as Iâd forecast having the same view even if the status quo was everyone already living in group house (or vice versa).
Suppose youâre the newly appointed director of a large charitable foundation which has allocated its charitable giving in a somewhat random way. If youâre able to resist status quo bias, then usually, you will not find yourself keeping the amount allocated for a particular cause at exactly the level it was at originally. For example, if the foundation is currently giving to education charities, and you donât think those charities are very effective, then youâll reduce their funding. If you think those charities are very effective, then youâll increase their funding.
Now consider âhaving EAs live alone in apartments in expensive citiesâ as a cause area. Currently, the amount weâre spending on this area has been set in a somewhat random way. Therefore, if weâre able to resist status quo bias, we should probably either be moving it up or moving it down. We could move it up by creating a charity that pays EAs to live alone, or move it down by encouraging EAs to move to the EA Hotel. (Maybe creating a charity that pays EAs to live alone would be impractical or create perverse incentives or something, this is more of an âin principleâ intuition pump sort of an argument.)
Edit: With regard to the professionalism thing, my personal feelings on this are something like the last paragraph in this commentâI think itâd be good for some of us to be more professional in certain respects (e.g. Iâm supportive of EAs working to gain institutional legitimacy for EA cause areas), but the Hotel culture I observed feels mostly acceptable to me. Probably some mixture of not seeing much interpersonal drama while I was there, and expecting the Hotel residents will continue to be fairly young people who donât occupy positions of power (grad student housing comes to mind). FWIW, my personal experience is that the value of professionalism comes up more often in Blackpool EA conversations than Bay Area EA conversations. With the Bay Area, you may very well be paying more rent for a less professional culture. Just my anecdotal impressions.
I find this thought experiment really weird because I donât think EAs living together should be centrally managed. It seems really obvious to me that EA as a movement faces less risks when a few friends who met through EA decide to move in together, rather than when people apply to an âEA houseâ with social programmes where they donât know anyone.
Like, if a couple living in the EA Hotel break up, thereâs a good chance theyâll both continue to living there and itâll be very awkward. If youâre in a flatshare, Iâd expect one of them to move out ASAP. The social norms are just so different.
I agree it would surprise if EA happened upon the optimal cohabitation level (although perhaps not that surprising, given individuals can act by the lights of their best interest which may reasonably approximate the global optimum), yet I maintain the charitable intervention hypothetical is a poor intuition pump as most people would be dissuaded from âinterveningâ to push towards the âoptimal cohabitation levelâ for âin practiceâ reasonsâe.g. much larger potential side-effects of trying to twiddle this dial, preserving the norm of leaving people to manage their personal lives as they see best, etc.
Iâd probably want to suggest the optimal cohabitation level is below what we currently observe (e.g. besides the issue Khorton mentions, cohabitation with your employees/âbosses/âcolleagues or funder/âfundee seems to run predictable risks), yet be reluctant to âinterveneâ any further up the coercion hierarchy than expressing my reasons for caution.