I’m currently a co-director at EA Netherlands (with Marieke de Visscher). We’re working to build and strengthen the EA community here.
Before this, I worked as a consultant on urban socioeconomic development projects and programmes funded by the EU. Before that, I studied liberal arts (in the UK) and then philosophy (in the Netherlands).
Hit me up if you wanna find out about the Dutch EA community! :)
Perhaps you could start a group that does something slightly different? Or speak with your national organisation (if you have one) and collaborate with them in starting a national cause or profession-based group? Or a company group?
For example, in the Netherlands, in addition to our city/student groups, we have a policy and politics group, a new group at ASML, and a new animal welfare group. And then we also have the Tien Procent Club. They’re inspired by Giving What We Can and run events focused on effective giving. They started in Amsterdam but they’ve now got chapters in several other cities.
You mentioned you’re applying to CE—I’d love it if we had a sort of CE group in NL, so that could be an option for you. I’m happy to jump on a call if you’d like to talk about this further :)
What do you make of this post? I’ve been trying to understand the downvotes. I find it valuable in the same way that I would have found it valuable if a friend had sent me it in a DM without context, or if someone had quote tweeted it with a line like ‘Prominent YouTuber shares her take on FHI closing down’.
I find posts like this useful because it’s valuable to see what external critics are saying about EA. This helps me either a) learn from their critiques or b) rebut their critiques. Even if they are bad critiques and/or I don’t think it’s worth my time rebutting them, I think I should be aware of them because it’s valuable to understand how others perceive the movement I am connected to. I think this is the same for other Forum users. This being the case, according to the Forum’s guidance on voting, I think I should upvote them. As Lizka says here, a summary is appreciated but isn’t necessary. A requirement to include a summary or an explanation also imposes a (small) cost on the poster, thus reducing the probability they post. But I think you feel differently?
Perhaps by starting a group? You don’t have to live in a major hub to start a group :)
Do you mind sharing approximately where in the world you live?
I think the bar for linkposts is supposed to the same as it is for original posts, no? At least, that’s how I’ve interpreted guidance published by mods on the subject.
If people are downvoting because they’re assuming a linkpost without a summary is low value then that’s a pity. Summaries are encouraged but they aren’t mandatory.
Or maybe down-voters are following Forum guidance perfectly—they’re downvoting because they don’t think it’s valuable for other Forum users to see prominent people publishing critiques. I disagree with this view, so it would be nice to see a defence of it.
Perhaps it would be valuable to have a ‘quick links’ section where this sort of thing could be shared without taking room from the front page? Or the guidance should advise people like Deborah to post this sort of thing in the quick takes section?
Yeah, the old title was enough for me because I’d heard of Sabine, but I think your advice to have a title that provides more context is good, e.g., “Prominent YouTuber with millions of subscribers posts extensive critique of FHI”. I agree it’s reasonable to expect someone who is posting a link to say something about its relevance.
However, I don’t think it’s reasonable to downvote without first checking the relevancy if that checking can be done in seconds (as was the case here).
I’ve noticed that Deborah often linkposts prominent people being critical of EA, and these posts are often downvoted. Why is this?
On this specific post, I agree with Jason that an explanation of the relevancy would be useful (although personally, the title alone was enough), but I don’t think this imperfection justifies the downvotes.
Personally, I find them useful because it’s valuable to see what external critics are saying about EA. This helps me either a) learn from their critiques or b) rebut their critiques. Even if they are bad critiques and I don’t think it’s worth my time rebutting them, I think I should be aware of them because it’s valuable to understand how others perceive the movement I am connected to. I think this is the same for other Forum users.
This being the case, according to the Forum’s guidance on voting, I think I should upvote them. But, judging by the downvotes, others see it differently. If you are one of these other people could you explain yourself? Thanks!
I’m surprised by the scepticism re 80k. The OP EA/LT survey from 2020 seems to suggest one can be quite confident of the positive impact 80k had on the small (but important) population surveyed. As the authors noted in their summary:
Among the organizations, pieces of content, and meetup groups/discussion platforms we explicitly asked about, the ones that seemed to have been most impactful on our respondents robustly, across multiple metrics, were 80,000 Hours, CEA, local and university EA groups, FHI, Nick Bostrom’s works, Eliezer Yudkowsky’s works, and Peter Singer’s works.
My recommended readings/resources for community builders/organisers
CEA’s groups resource centre, naturally
LifeLabs’s coaching questions (great for 1-1s with organisers you’re supporting/career coachees)
Centola’s work on social change, e.g., the book Change: How to Make Big Things Happen
Han’s work on organising, e.g., How Organisations Develop Activists (I wrote up some notes here)
This 80k article on community coordination
@Michael Noetel’s forum post - ‘We all teach: here’s how to do it better’
Ha yes that would have been helpful of me, I agree! Unfortunately, I can’t remember much, it was a couple of years ago. I remember experiencing a significant vibes mismatch in the section on excluding people (but maybe I was just being close-minded) and frustration with its wordiness.
Ah yes, that would be handy. I can’t see a way of doing that, unfortunately.
Pro-tip, if you have an iPhone, Apple’s podcast app now has transcriptions for most podcasts, including this one :)
I’ve heard from a lot of people that they’ve got a lot of value from this book. I’ll be honest, I started it but didn’t finish it. It didn’t sit right with me at the time.
I found The 2-Hour Cocktail Party to be far more valuable. I’d recommend it to anyone organising events, particularly social meet-ups.
Pros:
Short and to the point
Gives you a clear (and very detailed) algorithm to follow
I used it to host a gathering and it was a success
Despite it being tailored to a very specific scenario, I’ve used the advice in other scenarios and it’s worked well
Cons:
The author makes a big thing out of the importance of icebreakers and name tags. I didn’t follow that advice and it was absolutely fine. His advice is unusual for a US party but I think even more unusual for an EU party, so I didn’t want to risk it (people were already weirded out by relatively small things, e.g., a weeknight party for no reason and an RSVP page)
The advice is tailored to a very specific scenario (~15-person weeknight social gathering)
Big +1, thanks for bigging up Imma (and the Dutch EA community!)
Yeah I think I agree with you, and I think considering those three levels to be appropriate is consistent with the statement ‘I think most people should think of EA as little more than a hobby’.
I feel like pushing the ‘treat it like a hobby’ thing is good at the mo because I see a lot of people in the EA community feeling they ought to do more, and then they feel bad when it doesn’t work out, and that sucks. I worry they begin to tie their self-worth to whether they are a ‘good EA’ or not. I want to be like, hey, take it easy, you’re doing a good job—y’know?[1]
I’m reminded of when I spoke to a therapist at my uni because I was struggling with anxiety and perfectionism. I wanted to get the best grades and do great things, but in pursuing that goal so relentlessly it was a) undermining my ability to study well and b) making me unhappy. He reminded me that being a student was only a small part of my life. I was also a friend, a partner, a citizen, a son, etc., and these parts of my life were all equally valuable (if not more so).
I might take a different approach if I was talking with a member of the general population. Rutger Bregman’s School of Moral Ambition does that. He’s very much, ‘Yo, you’ve got all this potential, you should be more morally ambitious’. But then again, maybe I wouldn’t because the most thorough definition of EA I know of is non-normative, and I’m glad this is the case.
I thought 80k’s episode on altruistic perfectionism was great and we could do with more of it.
Thanks for the kind words! Glad you found my framing helpful :)
Oh but I did put ‘donate some money’ in my ‘hobby’ list—or am I misunderstanding you?
The latest episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast is about Derek Parfit.[1] It’s an interview with his biographer (and fellow philosopher) David Edmonds. It’s quite accessible and only 20 mins long. Very nice listening if you fancy a walk and want a primer on Parfit’s work.
My quick take: I think most people should think of EA as little more than a hobby.
For example, I like bouldering, so I often:
Practice
Do it with friends
Consume content to learn more about it
Talk about it with friends (if they like it, I talk about it in detail; if they aren’t really interested, I might just respond to a ‘How are you?’ with ‘Good thanks! Got a new PB at the bouldering gym yesterday so spirits are high!’)
So it’s important to me and I get a lot from it, but it’ll only ever be a small part of my life.
I don’t care if I’ll never be a professional athlete, or even if I never win a local competition. I’m happy to simply do it, to hang out with others who like doing it, and to share the highlights with people who are interested in what I’m up to.
I think EA should be the same for most people. If they like the idea of helping others as effectively as possible, they could consider:
Practicing (e.g., donate some money and apply to the odd job if it looks like it’ll be a good fit)
Doing it with friends (e.g., volunteer together, run a group together, start a side project together)
Consuming content to learn more (e.g., browse the forum occasionally, listen to the odd podcast, read the odd report)
Talking about it with friends (e.g., ‘Hey I was reading about this cool charity LEEP and I think you’d really like em! They...’ etc etc)
But that’s it. It’s not a big deal if you don’t end up ‘getting an EA job’ or donating €€€€€€€€.
Would love to but didn’t feel best placed/didn’t have time. Just wanted to encourage people to disagree vote instead of downvote, or at least explain why they’re downvoting.
Watch team backup: I think we should be incredibly careful about saying things like, “it is probably okay to work in an industry that is slightly bad for the world if you do lots of good by donating”. I’m sure you mean something reasonable when you say this, similar to what’s expressed here, but I still wanted to flag it.