I doubt I have anything original to say. There is already cause-specific non-EA outreach. (Not least a little thing called Lesswrong!) It’s great, and there should be more. Xrisk work is at least half altruistic for a lot of people, at least on the conscious level. We have managed the high-pay tension alright so far (not without cost). I don’t see an issue with some EA work happening sans the EA name; there are plenty of high-impact roles where it’d be unwise to broadcast any such social movement allegiance. The name is indeed not ideal, but I’ve never seen a less bad one and the switching costs seem way higher than the mild arrogance and very mild philosophical misconnotations of the current one.
Overall I see schism as solving (at really high expected cost) some social problems we can solve with talking and trade.
Good post!
I doubt I have anything original to say. There is already cause-specific non-EA outreach. (Not least a little thing called Lesswrong!) It’s great, and there should be more. Xrisk work is at least half altruistic for a lot of people, at least on the conscious level. We have managed the high-pay tension alright so far (not without cost). I don’t see an issue with some EA work happening sans the EA name; there are plenty of high-impact roles where it’d be unwise to broadcast any such social movement allegiance. The name is indeed not ideal, but I’ve never seen a less bad one and the switching costs seem way higher than the mild arrogance and very mild philosophical misconnotations of the current one.
Overall I see schism as solving (at really high expected cost) some social problems we can solve with talking and trade.