I don’t think any social movement of real size or influence has ever avoided drawing some skepticism, mockery, or even suspicion,
I think community builders should have a solid and detailed enough understanding of EA received wisdom to be able to lay out the case for our recommendations in a reasonably credible way, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect them to be domain experts in every domain, and that means that sometimes they aren’t going to be able to seem impressive to every domain expert that comes to us.
To be frank, it isn’t realistic to be able to capture the imagination of everyone who seems promising even if we make the best possible versions of our arguments. Some people will inevitably come away thinking we “just don’t get it”, that we haven’t addressed their objections, that we’re not serious about [specific concern X] and therefore our point of view is uninteresting. Communication channels just aren’t high-fidelity enough, and people’s engagement heuristics aren’t precise enough, to avoid this happening from time to time.
When some people are weirded out by the way we behave or try to attract new members, it seems to me like sometimes this is just reasonable self-protective heuristics that they have, working exactly as intended. People are creeped out by us giving them free books or telling them to change their careers or telling them that the future of humanity is at stake, because they reason “these people are putting a lot into me because they want a lot out of me”. They’re basically correct about that! While we value contributions from people at a wide range of levels of engagement and dedication, the “top end” is pretty extreme, as it should be, and some people are going to notice that and be worried about it. We can work to reduce that tension, but I don’t think it’s going away.
Obviously we should try our best on all of these dimensions, progress can be made, we can be more impressive and more appealing and less threatening and more welcoming. But I can’t imagine a realistic version of the EA community that honestly communicates about everything we believe and want to do and doesn’t alienate anyone by doing that.
I feel a desire to lower some expectations:
I don’t think any social movement of real size or influence has ever avoided drawing some skepticism, mockery, or even suspicion,
I think community builders should have a solid and detailed enough understanding of EA received wisdom to be able to lay out the case for our recommendations in a reasonably credible way, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect them to be domain experts in every domain, and that means that sometimes they aren’t going to be able to seem impressive to every domain expert that comes to us.
To be frank, it isn’t realistic to be able to capture the imagination of everyone who seems promising even if we make the best possible versions of our arguments. Some people will inevitably come away thinking we “just don’t get it”, that we haven’t addressed their objections, that we’re not serious about [specific concern X] and therefore our point of view is uninteresting. Communication channels just aren’t high-fidelity enough, and people’s engagement heuristics aren’t precise enough, to avoid this happening from time to time.
When some people are weirded out by the way we behave or try to attract new members, it seems to me like sometimes this is just reasonable self-protective heuristics that they have, working exactly as intended. People are creeped out by us giving them free books or telling them to change their careers or telling them that the future of humanity is at stake, because they reason “these people are putting a lot into me because they want a lot out of me”. They’re basically correct about that! While we value contributions from people at a wide range of levels of engagement and dedication, the “top end” is pretty extreme, as it should be, and some people are going to notice that and be worried about it. We can work to reduce that tension, but I don’t think it’s going away.
Obviously we should try our best on all of these dimensions, progress can be made, we can be more impressive and more appealing and less threatening and more welcoming. But I can’t imagine a realistic version of the EA community that honestly communicates about everything we believe and want to do and doesn’t alienate anyone by doing that.