I definitely felt dumb when I first encountered EA . Certain kinds of intelligence are particularly overrepresented and valorized in EA (e.g. quantitative/rational/analytical intelligence) and those are the kinds I’ve always felt weakest in (e.g. I failed high school physics, stopped taking math as quickly as I could). When I first started out working in EA I felt a lot of panic about being found out for being secretly dumb because I couldn’t keep up with discussions that leaned on those kinds of intelligence. I feel a lot better about this now, though it still haunts me sometimes.
What’s changed since then?
I still make dumb math mistakes when I’m required to do math in my current role—but I’ve found that I have other kinds of intelligence some of the colleagues I initially felt intimidated by are less strong in (i.e. judgment, emotional intelligence, intuitions about people) and even though these can be easily dismissed/considered ‘fluffy’ they actually do and have mattered in concrete ways.
I’ve come to realize that intelligence isn’t useful to consider as a monolithic category—most things can be decomposed into a bunch of specific skills, and ~anyone can get better at really specific skills if they decide it’s important enough and ask for help. The reason I’ve kept making dumb mistakes is mostly due to a learned helplessness I developed over years of failing at certain classes in school. This caused me to develop an identity around being hopeless along those dimensions, but this really isn’t the same as being “dumb” and I wish I’d recognized this sooner and just tried to solve a few key gaps in my knowledge that I felt embarrassed by.
Spending a lot of time in EA social circles can make you feel like people have value in proportion to how smart they are (again, smart in very specific ways) and people often seem to treat intelligence as a proxy for ability to have impact. But looking back at history the track record of highly intelligent people is a pretty mixed bag (smart people are also responsible for breakthroughs that create terrible threats!), and other character traits have also mattered a lot for doing a lot of good (e.g. work ethic, courage, moral fortitude). It feels good to remind myself that e.g. Stanislav Petrov or Vasili Arkhipov seem like they were pretty average people intelligence-wise; it didn’t stop them from preventing nuclear wars, so why should being bad at math lower my level of ambition about how much good I can do?
Another thing that’s helped is just having a sense of humor about feeling dumb. I used to feel a lot of shame about asking ‘dumb’ sounding questions and thus giving myself away as a dumb person in both work and social contexts. This caused a lot of anxiety and meant I was pretty nervous and serious most of the time. Over time I learned that if I asked my real questions in a lighthearted way/lightened up around discussions of stuff I didn’t understand people took it well and I enjoyed the interactions more.
I’ve also realized over time how much the desire to be perceived as smart shapes EA group dynamics. This leads to a) more people doing what I described above (not asking questions or wanting to reveal they don’t understand, causing you to feel alone in this feeling), b) talking or writing in unnecessarily complex or erudite ways in order to signal that they’re part of the in group. Becoming aware of these dynamics helped me to start opting out of them/trying to intentionally violate these scripts more often.
I hope this is at least somewhat helpful—I’m sorry you’re feeling this way and I can definitely assure you you’re not alone (and I really hope you don’t leave EA for this reason)!.
I definitely felt dumb when I first encountered EA . Certain kinds of intelligence are particularly overrepresented and valorized in EA (e.g. quantitative/rational/analytical intelligence) and those are the kinds I’ve always felt weakest in (e.g. I failed high school physics, stopped taking math as quickly as I could). When I first started out working in EA I felt a lot of panic about being found out for being secretly dumb because I couldn’t keep up with discussions that leaned on those kinds of intelligence. I feel a lot better about this now, though it still haunts me sometimes.
What’s changed since then?
I still make dumb math mistakes when I’m required to do math in my current role—but I’ve found that I have other kinds of intelligence some of the colleagues I initially felt intimidated by are less strong in (i.e. judgment, emotional intelligence, intuitions about people) and even though these can be easily dismissed/considered ‘fluffy’ they actually do and have mattered in concrete ways.
I’ve come to realize that intelligence isn’t useful to consider as a monolithic category—most things can be decomposed into a bunch of specific skills, and ~anyone can get better at really specific skills if they decide it’s important enough and ask for help. The reason I’ve kept making dumb mistakes is mostly due to a learned helplessness I developed over years of failing at certain classes in school. This caused me to develop an identity around being hopeless along those dimensions, but this really isn’t the same as being “dumb” and I wish I’d recognized this sooner and just tried to solve a few key gaps in my knowledge that I felt embarrassed by.
Spending a lot of time in EA social circles can make you feel like people have value in proportion to how smart they are (again, smart in very specific ways) and people often seem to treat intelligence as a proxy for ability to have impact. But looking back at history the track record of highly intelligent people is a pretty mixed bag (smart people are also responsible for breakthroughs that create terrible threats!), and other character traits have also mattered a lot for doing a lot of good (e.g. work ethic, courage, moral fortitude). It feels good to remind myself that e.g. Stanislav Petrov or Vasili Arkhipov seem like they were pretty average people intelligence-wise; it didn’t stop them from preventing nuclear wars, so why should being bad at math lower my level of ambition about how much good I can do?
Another thing that’s helped is just having a sense of humor about feeling dumb. I used to feel a lot of shame about asking ‘dumb’ sounding questions and thus giving myself away as a dumb person in both work and social contexts. This caused a lot of anxiety and meant I was pretty nervous and serious most of the time. Over time I learned that if I asked my real questions in a lighthearted way/lightened up around discussions of stuff I didn’t understand people took it well and I enjoyed the interactions more.
I’ve also realized over time how much the desire to be perceived as smart shapes EA group dynamics. This leads to a) more people doing what I described above (not asking questions or wanting to reveal they don’t understand, causing you to feel alone in this feeling), b) talking or writing in unnecessarily complex or erudite ways in order to signal that they’re part of the in group. Becoming aware of these dynamics helped me to start opting out of them/trying to intentionally violate these scripts more often.
I hope this is at least somewhat helpful—I’m sorry you’re feeling this way and I can definitely assure you you’re not alone (and I really hope you don’t leave EA for this reason)!.