Kaleem Ahmid.
Previously an Entrepreneur in Residence at EV, Community Builder at Northeastern and in Boston, a Visiting Scholar at JHU Center for Health Security, and EAGxBoston 2022 and EAGxNYC 2023 organiser.
Kaleem
Karma: 2,411
(I’m contracting for CEA’s events team to work on EAGxNYC)
I like this idea—It’d be nice to hear from a wider range of people in the community, and away to give more people a platform—which would be good for defusing fame in the community.
We’re doing a non-blinded version of this for EAGxNYC—I think ~30% of applicants were people who we wouldn’t have thought to ask to present—which is good I think. BUT it is riskier or more costly as an event organiser to select them (you don’t know if they’re good speakers, you have to vet them and their work before deciding etc).
I’m curious about ways you think to mitigate against being seen as the face of/spokesperson for EA
Yeah I wasn’t planning on these necessarily being between “famous” EAs—if someone is a content expert and wants to debate, and happens to be “famous” then that’d be okay I think. But the point isn’t “Come to EAGx and watch the MacAskill v Holden debate boxing”.
[Question] Debates at EAGxNYC
I want to agree with you, but I feel like whenever I come up with an example of someone who is high prestige and fits >3 of your 4 criteria, I can think of someone equaly-ish high prestige who is maybe only fulfilling one or none of them. I’ve been wondering about how to study or prove these claims about prestige in the community in less subjective way (although I don’t know how important it would be to actually do this)
Interesting—do you have any thoughts as to what status within the community is currently aligned? My recent thought was that we make a mistake by over-emphasizing impact (or success) when it comes to social status, rather than “trying your best on a high EV project regardless of outcome” for instance.
2023 update on Muslims for Effective Altruism
Apply Now: First-Ever EAGxNYC This August
Should EA grantmakers make p(success) public?
I’m looking for a couple of grant-makers to read a draft of a post I’m writing about grant making. Its v short (3 pages). Please DM me if interested
The US federal government controls most US infrastructure, either directly or indirectly through regulation, and is generally considered to be leading America.
Okay yes that’s true, the government owns a lot of stuff. But aren’t they considered ‘the leader’ because they were/ it was democratically elected to lead?
I guess I should have more accurately said “I wouldn’t consider the richest Americans/the Americans who own the most stuff to be the leaders of America solely because they own the most stuff”.
I think there are a couple of things you’re pointing out which are different issues than the one I’m trying to suggest a resolution to, or I disagree with.
1) I don’t think CEA *is* ‘the de facto leader’ of the EA movement. So I find it problematic that branding/communication issues are leading to people in the community thinking that it is the case.
2) I don’t have an issue per se with CEA solely running EA Global or the forum, or doing other things—it’s just that there needs to be a clearer understanding (through reiteration and visibility) within the community of what CEA is and is not. Sure, CEA may be disproportionately prominent (mostly through being visible) but at most that makes them one of leading organisations in the EA movement, not the leader. (also I assume when you mean the movement, you’re talking about meta-EA or community building stuff, as I don’t think you’d really endorse the idea that CEA is in charge of all of this?)
3) I think“Unless they cede control of these major parts of EA infrastructure then they will continue to be the de facto leaders of the movement”.
raises an interesting question/points to a weird way you think about leadership? I wouldn’t consider the richest Americans/the Americans who own the most stuff to be the leaders of America. Maybe you’re suggesting they control the movement or dictate what EA does, but I would suggest EA’s main/only substantive funder, and the 5-20 individuals who decide where its money goes, fills that role, not CEA.
I don’t think I’m on board with all the ‘democratise EA’ cries which have been made over the past year, but I think I’m sentimentally in agreement with you about centralised control—and that it’s not great that decision making, through funding, is currently monopolised.
(and Hillary is Oxford Philosophy Professor Hillary Greaves who served as director between 2017 and 2022)
Thanks for writing this and posting it—it is surprising that a text which is increasingly becoming a foundational piece of ‘introductory’ reading for people interested in x-risk reduction (and TAI more specifically) hasn’t been rigorously or critically examined to the extent we’d probably want it to. Hopefully there are more to come after this.
On a different note @mods—it doesn’t seem like tagging this as a community post is appropriate, and would lead to fewer people (who’d probably want to see it) from seeing it. It might even be worth posting on lesswrong if you’re feeling brave!
Changing CEA’s name.
For those interested in this point, I’ve written a separate post where I’m hoping a discussion about this can be centralised.
Two things that I think could make the community better
Hi Alex, thanks for this really detailed post, and for the work you put into the analysis! Its a really nice example of how internal critique in the EA community has lead to a tangible update.
My question: (How) Should the average reader/non-expert update on this −10% re-weighting? Like, if ~-10% is the decided as the official relighting, will this have a non-negligible effect on how we should view the cost-effectiveness of deworming programs etc?
I work as a project manager for property projects in the US for EV Ops. The nature of my work (dealing with construction contractors, furniture installers etc) means that I often have to work before 9am or after 5pm, as well as on weekends (and generally be willing to take calls at anytime of the week without notice). In general I’ve worked more than 40 hours a week for the past year, but at no point have I felt like that was expected of me (and on multiple occasions my manager asked me to stop working more than I need to and to take more time off/rest more). My observation of work culture within EV orgs is that people are super encouraging of colleagues taking time off and that most people do take time off in a regular and healthy way.
Devils advocate. He’s right! Why don’t we just buy them a boat instead!?
Me too