The guy in the panda hat at EAG
Cornelis Dirk Haupt
Why was this prediction removed?
I immediately thought of GiveWell’s Why We Can’t take EV Calculations Literally Even When They’re Unbiased: https://blog.givewell.org/2011/08/18/why-we-cant-take-expected-value-estimates-literally-even-when-theyre-unbiased/
Except this comes all the way from 2011 so can’t really be used to strongly argue EA has recently moved away from explicit EV calculations. It looks more likely that strong skepticism of explicit EV calculations has been a feature of the EA community since its inception.
You cant apply without a Google account? That’s pretty lame.
EDIT: to highlight how ridiculously lame this is note how I cant apply now without doing something as ridiculous as making a new Google account only for this event. I am working remotely from another continent. I cannot log into my gmail account (an account I don’t use I might add) because it has 2FA enabled and I cannot get the code because it sends it to my phone number which does not work while I am travelling remotely.
Fun.
So just to be clear: the roadblock here is that without a Google account I cannot even view the application questions. So I still wouldn’t have been able to email hello@futureforum.foundation my application. The application is just not publicly viewable without a Google account. There should be a way to configure Google Forms where a Google account sign in is not required but optional. I have set up Google Forms like this in the past for my University group where some students used other email providers. However, I’m aware Google has changed significantly in 6-8 years so maybe now it is required.
Regardless, I ended up just using some other G account of mine for it that I usually wouldn’t. So problem resolved. Note that I expressed annoyance, but I acknowledge I’m an edge case so I’ll understand if this will just not be seen as an important enough issue to fix. That said, restricting applications to only people with Google accounts is still… odd, so I guess I’d still recommend that future Future Forum applications not have this issue.
I think every EA or EA-adjacent org I have filled out half a million forms for at this point always use Typeform. This, I think, is why I’ve never ran into this problem before, despite not using my Google account for years at this point. So it might be a good idea to use Typeform instead of Google Forms in the future.
I use FIDO2 security keysfor 2FA wherever I can and recommend them to everyone. I just don’t have it set up for my Google account since I just don’t use said account so never got round to it. But you are right to encourage me regardless—I should get round to it since I very likely will be forced to use a Google account again in the future and when that happens I might again be travelling.
I’m curious, what about the colour lavender makes it associated with artificial sentience? Is there precedence for this?
So after going through all the counter-proposals in the discussions below and reading how people don’t like your design I feel compelled to voice that I like your design more than any other I have seen. For me it is aesthetically pleasing and I think the salient symbolism of paying homage to our evolutionary origins in East Africa is being under-appreciated. I find it quite compelling at any rate.
But perhaps this is a by-product of how partial I am to ideas such as the Epic of evolution. Longtermism in a narrative sense just seems like a natural extension into the future of the same ongoing Epic, so linking the two in some way feels essential.
One thing that bothers me the most is our rejection process seems pretty opaque?
We’re a community that prides itself on transparency, assuming no info hazards, because of how instrumentally helpful said transparency can be.
I explained to an excited young bright-eyed philanthropically-minded newcomer to EA this week why he likely got rejected to EAG DC. He doesn’t really know the EA-basics so I explained that EAG rejects EA newcomers so attendees can avoid having the “what is EA” converasation for the millionth time. I then encouraged him that I’ll help make sure he can get in next year and that the EA Virtual programs are a great place to get started on his EA journey. Also EAGx’s exist with a lower barrier to entry.
He told me he appreciates my honesty in letting him know why he got rejected.
What bugs me right now is I shouldn’t have to encourage him or make him feel as if the rejection is “honest.” The rejection they receive should be doing that and transparently giving them advice on how not to get rejected again. Does the rejection right now just consist of an automated “sorry we have too many great applicants” and that’s all?
So me and some other EAs just talked to the person in the tweet that got rejected.
Far as I could tell they have a stellar “EA resume” and was even encouraged to apply by leaders in their EA community.
Why were they rejected? What is this “specific bar for admissions and everyone above that bar gets admitted” and why are so many applying and then surprised when they don’t meet this bar? Or is my perception off here?
This isn’t an accusation. I’m in the camp that thinks the conference should not be a free-for-all. But I can’t figure out why the person in the tweet would be rejected from EAG. And as a community organiser it would be great if I can know how best to help the bright-eyed enthusiastic young promising students in my community get into EAG.
See also my other comment asking if the rejection process is possibly too opaque. Maybe that’s the real issue here. Imagine if every person who got rejected knew exactly why and what they could do to not get rejected next time. I almost feel like we wouldn’t be having this discussion because far fewer people would be upset.
Sorry if tangential or I am missing an obvious cultural reference, but this statement keeps bugging me:
People getting angry at not being invited to things has been a problem for a long time, and could even be considered a potential global catastrophic risk.
What is the support for holding this belief? The only cultural reference that comes to my mind is Hitler being rejected from Art school (i.e. not being invited to a prestigious thing). However, the thought that the counterfactual impact of such a rejection is the holocaust is more an internet meme than a rational thought that should be turned into a belief about the world.
EDIT: Lukas Gloor does a much better job than me at getting across everything I wanted to in this comment here
There was a vague tone of “the goal is to get accepted to EAG” instead of “the goal is to make the world better,” which I felt a bit uneasy about when reading the post. EAGs are only useful in so far as they let community members to better work in the real world.
From my reading her goals are not simply get into EAG. It seems obvious to me that her goal to get into EAG is instrumental to the end of making the world a better place. The crux is not “Constance just wants to get into EAG.” The crux I think is Constance believes she can help make the world a better place much more through connecting with people at EAG. The CEA does not appear to believe this to be the case.
The crux should be the focus. Focusing on how badly she wants to get into EAG is a distraction.
“EAG exists to make the world a better place, rather than serve the EA community or make EAs happy.”
For many EAs you cannot have a well-run conference that makes the world a better place without it also being a place that makes many EAs very happy. I’d think the two goals are synonymous for a great many EAs.
In their comment Eli says:
This unfortunately sometimes means EAs will be sad due to decisions we’ve made — though if this results in the world being a worse place overall, then we’ve clearly made a mistake.
Let’s also remember that EAs that get rejected from EAG that believe their rejection resulted in the world being a worse place overall will also be sad—probably moreso because they get both the FOMO but also a deeper moral sting. In fact, they might be so sad it motivates them to write an EA Forum post about it in the hopes of making sure that the CEA didn’t make a mistake.
I like Eli’s comment. It captures something important. But I also don’t like it because it can also provide a false sense of clarity—seperating goals that aren’t actually always that seperate—and this false clarity can possibly provide a motivated reasoning basis that can be used to more easily believe the EAG admission process didn’t make a mistake and make the world a worse place. Why? Because it makes it easier to dismiss an EA that is very sad about being rejected from EAG as just someone who “wants to get into EAG.”
I strongly agree with this. And your footnote example is also excellent-excellent. I don’t see why it isn’t obvious that Constance’s goal of getting into EAG is merely intrumental to her larger goal of making the world a better place (primarily for animal suffering since that is what she currently seems to believe is the world’s most pressing issue).
On a much more lighthearted note you:
Have a prominent EA you consider your hero (with a photo op!)
Gave up one career to pursue another one you enjoyed less so you can do more good (EtG)
Have done some obscure project that you judged based on numbers instead of feelings was effective, so went for it (TNR kittens)
Have been rejected by at least one EAG
Wrote a lengthy EA Forum post criticizing the EA Community with proposed solutions
Don’t know all the LessWrong—EA jargon but is adamantly trying to learn more
Can we all just agree this is just (say this in a California Valley Girl accent) “So EA,” all these are so much the hallmarks of the EA experience that the Spirit of Gorgeous-Locks William MacAskill may well be bursting from you. So regardless about what any of us think about the EAG admissions process : you clearly belong in this community, lol.
She responded to this concern here. She has been to an EAGx before and was and is open to going to others
When she talked to Amy (which is probably where you are getting the info and drawing conclusion from), it was not because she viewed them as lesser but because she had a scheduling conflict since she was a speaker at the AVA Summit.
Edit: he has responded
I was in the same conversation. It was at an EAGx conference, not EAG. I’ve pinged the person who shared the anecdote. They’ll respond here soon. Better to get it straight from the source. I don’t think they mentioned the staff member enforced any norms—just that their prescence felt kind of odd given they are someone with the power to ban people from the conference (which I guess implicitly enforces norms). They also mentioned that this particular staff member was regardless a lovely person and mentioned how their prescence feeling odd or intimidating may have something to do with a cultural difference since the EAGx was held in Asia.
But let us wait for the anecdote source to respond directly lest we let this hearsay evidence train derail itself.
I’d also like to say as someone who has been to multiple EAGs and even volunteered, I’ve not experienced there being any intimidating norm-enforcer. In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to think of even a single EAG staff member that wasn’t incredibly approachable, kind, professional and compassionate. No matter where they were on the implicit status hierarchy—even if they were virtually EA-celebrities—nobody felt intimidating to me.
Join us on GatherTown and you can meet Constance! :)
I can confirm she is a lot of fun to talk to.
If you can’t this weekend I’ll be sure to ask her myself if she can talk to UBC EAs and pass along her details to you.
Corn.
OP links to insider insight in the “Personal Hypotheses for Rejection” section of the post.
I disagree. If anything EA has a problem that Alexrjl hinted at that you gain too much status for criticising EA. Scott Alexander’s recent post made me update in that direction.
(Sidenote: I gave your comment an upvote because I appreciate it, but an agreement downvote since I disagree. And it is just making me happy right now to see how useful explicitly seperating these two voting systems can be)
You are right. The bookmark to the relevant section in the Google Doc appears to have been removed. Unsure why.
All I know is that Constance got some insider insight from someone at the CEA and promised she wouldn’t share it.
This might sound silly but I guess naming can matter a lot, but is there a name other than “tofu” that these “rare Chinese tofus” can be called that wouldn’t just be made up? If they are indeed as different then it might be worth marketing them with a different name to distinguish them strongly from what Westerners currently think of as tofu. I am a Westerner and long time vegan, but throughout the article whenever I read the word “tofu” the image of only culinary blandness crosses my mind because that is the only reference point I have. This image association I introspectovely notice I cannot seem to break despite being very excited now to try these rare Chinese Tofus before I die.
On that note, I’d like to voice support for the sentiment that Chinese vegan cuisine is shockingly diverse. I travelled to Hunan pre-covid and thought I would have cheat and eat meat from time to time thinking veganism just doesn’t exist there. I was incredibly wrong.
It felt easier to find cheap incredibly tasty full vegan meals there even though I didn’t know the area than it is in my very vegan-friendly West Coast city despite living here for over a decade. Almost certainly my memories are being clouded by positive association due to being on vacation, but still a data point. Make of it what you will.