Thanks for the comments. FWIW, when I was thinking inclusive I had in mind 1) the websites of EA orgs and 2) introductory pitches at (student) events, rather than the talks involved in running a student group. I have no views on student groups being inclusive in their full roster of talks, not least because I doubt the groups would cohere enough to push a particular moral theory.
I agree that lots of people don’t have strong moral views and I think EA should be a place where they figure out what they think, rather than a place where various orgs push them substantially in one direction or another. As I stress, I think even the perception of a ‘right’ answer is bad for truth seeking. Bed Todd doesn’t seem to have responded to my comments on this, so I’m not really sure what he thinks.
And, again FWIW, survivorship bias is a concern. Anecdataly, I know a bunch of people that decided EA weirdness, particularly with reference to the far future, was want made them decide not to come back.
(Distinct comment on survivorship bias as it seems like a pretty separate topic)
I currently think good knowledge about what drives people away from EA would be valuable, although obviously fairly hard to collect, and can’t remember ever seeing a particularly large collection of reasons given.
I am unsure as to how much we should try and respond to some kinds of complaints though, for things such as people being driven away by weirdness for instance, it is not clear to me that there is much we can do to make EA more inclusive to them without losing a lot of the value of EA (pursuing arguments even if they lead to strange conclusions etc.)
In particular do you know of anyone who left because they only cared about e.g. global poverty and did not want to engage with the far future stuff, who you think would have stayed if EA had been presented to them as including far future stuff from the start? It seems like it might just bring the point when they are put off earlier.
Ah ok, I think I generally agree with your points then (that intro events and websites should be morally inclusive and explain (to some degree) the diversity of EA. My current impression is that this is not much of a problem at the moment. From talking to people working at EA orgs and the reading the advice given to students running into events I think people do advocate for honesty and moral inclusiveness, and when/if it is lacking this is more due to a lack of time/honest mistakes as opposed to conscious planning.
(Although possibly we should try to dedicate much more time to it to try and ensure it is never neglected?)
In particular I associate the whole ‘moral uncertainty’ thing pretty strongly with EA, and in particular CEA and GWWC (but this might just be due to Toby and Will’s work on it) which strikes fairly strongly against part 3 in your main post.
How much of a problem do you think this currently is? The title and tone (use of plea etc.) in your post makes me think you feel we are currently in pretty dire straights.
I also think that generally student run talks (and not specific intro to EA events) are the way most people initially hear about EA (although could be very wrong about this) and so actually the majority of the confusion about what EA is really about would not get addressed by people fully embracing the recommendations in your post. (Although I may just be heavily biased towards how the EA societies I have been involved with have worked).
Hello Alex,
Thanks for the comments. FWIW, when I was thinking inclusive I had in mind 1) the websites of EA orgs and 2) introductory pitches at (student) events, rather than the talks involved in running a student group. I have no views on student groups being inclusive in their full roster of talks, not least because I doubt the groups would cohere enough to push a particular moral theory.
I agree that lots of people don’t have strong moral views and I think EA should be a place where they figure out what they think, rather than a place where various orgs push them substantially in one direction or another. As I stress, I think even the perception of a ‘right’ answer is bad for truth seeking. Bed Todd doesn’t seem to have responded to my comments on this, so I’m not really sure what he thinks.
And, again FWIW, survivorship bias is a concern. Anecdataly, I know a bunch of people that decided EA weirdness, particularly with reference to the far future, was want made them decide not to come back.
(Distinct comment on survivorship bias as it seems like a pretty separate topic)
I currently think good knowledge about what drives people away from EA would be valuable, although obviously fairly hard to collect, and can’t remember ever seeing a particularly large collection of reasons given.
I am unsure as to how much we should try and respond to some kinds of complaints though, for things such as people being driven away by weirdness for instance, it is not clear to me that there is much we can do to make EA more inclusive to them without losing a lot of the value of EA (pursuing arguments even if they lead to strange conclusions etc.)
In particular do you know of anyone who left because they only cared about e.g. global poverty and did not want to engage with the far future stuff, who you think would have stayed if EA had been presented to them as including far future stuff from the start? It seems like it might just bring the point when they are put off earlier.
Ah ok, I think I generally agree with your points then (that intro events and websites should be morally inclusive and explain (to some degree) the diversity of EA. My current impression is that this is not much of a problem at the moment. From talking to people working at EA orgs and the reading the advice given to students running into events I think people do advocate for honesty and moral inclusiveness, and when/if it is lacking this is more due to a lack of time/honest mistakes as opposed to conscious planning. (Although possibly we should try to dedicate much more time to it to try and ensure it is never neglected?)
In particular I associate the whole ‘moral uncertainty’ thing pretty strongly with EA, and in particular CEA and GWWC (but this might just be due to Toby and Will’s work on it) which strikes fairly strongly against part 3 in your main post.
How much of a problem do you think this currently is? The title and tone (use of plea etc.) in your post makes me think you feel we are currently in pretty dire straights.
I also think that generally student run talks (and not specific intro to EA events) are the way most people initially hear about EA (although could be very wrong about this) and so actually the majority of the confusion about what EA is really about would not get addressed by people fully embracing the recommendations in your post. (Although I may just be heavily biased towards how the EA societies I have been involved with have worked).