I think this is a critical question for EA right now. I do want to try to make some distinctions about what the âEA Communityâ means though:
I think the âEA brandâ or âpublic/âelite perception of EAâ should be evaluated as separate from the âEA Communityâ, otherwise I think itâs too broad. And I think this is doing very badly, in fact in many areas that used to be friendly-ish to EA (e.g. silicon valley and highly-educated-online-twitter) it seems to be absolutely toxic right now.
I also think the public perception of EA is almost unrelated to the truth. People seem to think that ~95%+ of funding goes to bonkers galaxy-brained AI research, instead of most AI research being mech interp, and most EA Funding still going to GH&D.
âthe group of people who identify as effective altruistsâ is also quite loose. Like, Iâm aware of people who hang around EAs and donate almost exclusively to GiveWell recommended charities who personally âwouldnât identify as an effective altruistsâ,[1] so I donât know how meaningful that is either.
My particular beef here is that I think the âEA Communityâ has been used unfairly as a punching bag over the last year. The EAs I interact with are basically all kind, humane, thoughtful, not totalising or involved in any of the shenanigans that I see mostly coming from the Bay Area and Bay Culture rather than EA at all.
âEA Leadershipâ is also a vague and nebulous term but I also want to highly distinguish that from the broader EA Community. People disagree about who these are, and why they matter, and what they believe, and how much it should matter! I agree that there seems to be a lot of changing of the guard, which is interesting, and a lack of people stepping up to be âleadersâ in the community in the Long 2023.
tl;drâagree that these are very important questions, Iâd like people (including myself) to be more precise about what they mean when they talk about the Community, as I think that would be more likely to lead to productive changes
I think this is a critical question for EA right now. I do want to try to make some distinctions about what the âEA Communityâ means though:
I think the âEA brandâ or âpublic/âelite perception of EAâ should be evaluated as separate from the âEA Communityâ, otherwise I think itâs too broad. And I think this is doing very badly, in fact in many areas that used to be friendly-ish to EA (e.g. silicon valley and highly-educated-online-twitter) it seems to be absolutely toxic right now.
I also think the public perception of EA is almost unrelated to the truth. People seem to think that ~95%+ of funding goes to bonkers galaxy-brained AI research, instead of most AI research being mech interp, and most EA Funding still going to GH&D.
âthe group of people who identify as effective altruistsâ is also quite loose. Like, Iâm aware of people who hang around EAs and donate almost exclusively to GiveWell recommended charities who personally âwouldnât identify as an effective altruistsâ,[1] so I donât know how meaningful that is either.
My particular beef here is that I think the âEA Communityâ has been used unfairly as a punching bag over the last year. The EAs I interact with are basically all kind, humane, thoughtful, not totalising or involved in any of the shenanigans that I see mostly coming from the Bay Area and Bay Culture rather than EA at all.
âEA Leadershipâ is also a vague and nebulous term but I also want to highly distinguish that from the broader EA Community. People disagree about who these are, and why they matter, and what they believe, and how much it should matter! I agree that there seems to be a lot of changing of the guard, which is interesting, and a lack of people stepping up to be âleadersâ in the community in the Long 2023.
tl;drâagree that these are very important questions, Iâd like people (including myself) to be more precise about what they mean when they talk about the Community, as I think that would be more likely to lead to productive changes
whereas to me, if it talks like an EA and if it donates like an EA...