I agree that it’s very important to continue using EA money to enable people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to participate in EA to do so, and it certainly sounds like in your case you’re doing this to great effect on socioeconomic representation. And I agree that the amount of funding a group member requests is a very bad proxy for whether they’re rent-seeking. But I don’t agree with several of the next steps here, and as a result, I think the implication — that increased attention to rent-seeking in EA is dangerous for socioeconomic inclusion — is wrong.
I think my disagreement boils down to the claim:
I’m not sure how you could reliably tell the difference between a ‘rent-seeker’ and someone who just doesn’t know EA in-depth yet, or who is nervous.
In my experience, it is actually pretty easy for group organizers to differentiate. People who are excited about EA and excited about the free flight or their first major travel experience/etc do not set off “rent-seeking alarms” in my gut. People who ask a lot of questions about getting reimbursed for stuff do not set these alarms off, either. You’re right that these correlate with socioeconomic status (or youth, or random other factors) more than rent-seeking.
It’s people who do these things and don’t seem that excited about EA that set off these alarms. And assessing how interested someone is in EA is, like, one of the absolute essential functions of group organizers.
I think EA group organizers tend to be hyper-cooperators who strongly default towards trusting people, and generally this is fine. It’s pretty harmless to allow a suspected rent-seeker to eat the free food at a discussion, and can be pretty costly to stop them (in social capital, time, drama, and possibly getting it wrong). But it’s actually pretty harmful, I think, for them to come to EAGs, where the opportunity costs of people’s time and attention — and the default trust people give to unfamiliar faces — are much higher. For me, it takes consciously asking the question, “Wait, do I trust this person?” for my decision-making brain to acknowledge the information that my social-observational brain has been gathering that the person doesn’t actually seem very interested. But I think this gut-level thing is generally pretty reliable. I’ll put it this way: I would be pretty surprised if EA group organizers incorrectly excluded basically anyone from EAGs in the past year, and I think it’s very likely that the bar should be moved in the direction of scrutiny — of just checking in with our gut about whether the person seems sincere.
That’s a good point, about community organisers being kind of a filter. I like to think I’d know if someone was looking to extract profit. To be honest we usually have the other problem. I’ve heard a few times before from people they ‘dont want to take the p*ss’ and I have to convince them it’s alright to stay at a 2 star instead of a 1 star! I think the groups function well because it’s (in theory for me, never happened yet) possible to tell when someone’s shifty. So I agree with that point.
I do still think though that too much focus on the discourse risks socioeconomic exclusion. I know people don’t intend it this way, but sometimes the discourse can come off quite elitist in writing when worded incorrectly. It’s a risk. But at the same time I would hate to chill someone’s free speech, and valid concerns. Communities are always a delicate balancing act! Difficult to get right.
I think you’re probably right that there are elitism risks depending on how it’s phrased. Seems like there should be ways to talk about the problem without sounding alienating in this way. Since I’m claiming that the focus really should just be on detecting insincerity, I think a good way to synthesize this would just be to talk about keeping an eye out for insincerity rather than “rent-seeking” per se.
I agree that it’s very important to continue using EA money to enable people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to participate in EA to do so, and it certainly sounds like in your case you’re doing this to great effect on socioeconomic representation. And I agree that the amount of funding a group member requests is a very bad proxy for whether they’re rent-seeking. But I don’t agree with several of the next steps here, and as a result, I think the implication — that increased attention to rent-seeking in EA is dangerous for socioeconomic inclusion — is wrong.
I think my disagreement boils down to the claim:
In my experience, it is actually pretty easy for group organizers to differentiate. People who are excited about EA and excited about the free flight or their first major travel experience/etc do not set off “rent-seeking alarms” in my gut. People who ask a lot of questions about getting reimbursed for stuff do not set these alarms off, either. You’re right that these correlate with socioeconomic status (or youth, or random other factors) more than rent-seeking.
It’s people who do these things and don’t seem that excited about EA that set off these alarms. And assessing how interested someone is in EA is, like, one of the absolute essential functions of group organizers.
I think EA group organizers tend to be hyper-cooperators who strongly default towards trusting people, and generally this is fine. It’s pretty harmless to allow a suspected rent-seeker to eat the free food at a discussion, and can be pretty costly to stop them (in social capital, time, drama, and possibly getting it wrong). But it’s actually pretty harmful, I think, for them to come to EAGs, where the opportunity costs of people’s time and attention — and the default trust people give to unfamiliar faces — are much higher. For me, it takes consciously asking the question, “Wait, do I trust this person?” for my decision-making brain to acknowledge the information that my social-observational brain has been gathering that the person doesn’t actually seem very interested. But I think this gut-level thing is generally pretty reliable. I’ll put it this way: I would be pretty surprised if EA group organizers incorrectly excluded basically anyone from EAGs in the past year, and I think it’s very likely that the bar should be moved in the direction of scrutiny — of just checking in with our gut about whether the person seems sincere.
That’s a good point, about community organisers being kind of a filter. I like to think I’d know if someone was looking to extract profit. To be honest we usually have the other problem. I’ve heard a few times before from people they ‘dont want to take the p*ss’ and I have to convince them it’s alright to stay at a 2 star instead of a 1 star! I think the groups function well because it’s (in theory for me, never happened yet) possible to tell when someone’s shifty. So I agree with that point.
I do still think though that too much focus on the discourse risks socioeconomic exclusion. I know people don’t intend it this way, but sometimes the discourse can come off quite elitist in writing when worded incorrectly. It’s a risk. But at the same time I would hate to chill someone’s free speech, and valid concerns. Communities are always a delicate balancing act! Difficult to get right.
I think you’re probably right that there are elitism risks depending on how it’s phrased. Seems like there should be ways to talk about the problem without sounding alienating in this way. Since I’m claiming that the focus really should just be on detecting insincerity, I think a good way to synthesize this would just be to talk about keeping an eye out for insincerity rather than “rent-seeking” per se.