I would like to be able to subscribe to notifications for sequences like this one: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/FxFwhFG227F6FgnKk
ludwigbald
Karma: 513
I’m happy to see that the increased community focus on gender diversity seems to be paying off, that’s a healthy increase!
There’s still quite a way to go to gender equality though. If you want to forecast on where it will go, I have a market: https://manifold.markets/LudwigBald/in-2025-what-percentage-of-eas-are It currently predicts 36% non-male survey respondents by 2025
Community notes are great, even though they are (still?) restricted to the US. The good thing is that they seem to work fast enough so most tweet impressions are actually annotated.
Hey, there’s a new university around!
EAs have long floated the idea of starting or buying a university, but a group of sustainability activists and experts has actually done so. It’s privately funded, accredited in Germany, offers bachelor’s, master’s and MBA degrees. Teaching is online-only, I suppose for cost savings and global inclusivity.
What do you think?
A year later, it seems like Elon does not value sane discussion on the Birdsite. If he does, he can’t change Twitter too much, because he is under a lot of pressure to make money. This is the fundamental problem with modern ad-supported social media—The business model is not aligned with users, and there’s not really an easy way of escaping this.
EA Germany board members are voted into office by members (aka the community). The board is formally responsible to ordinary community members, and they need to explain their actions. So the remaining board members would at the very least face questions. It’s not a complete fix of course, but I think it could have helped.
As a community member, reading this kind of marketing language being applied to me is kind of uncomfortable. I want to be enabled, not persuaded.
This general approach still makes sense, so I think it should still be applied when doing outreach or planning events. But please don’t forget there are people on the other side.
It’s important that community members feel valued even if they don’t seem likely to have massive impact!
I’m not familiar with your work so far, but there definitely is room for developing and advertising “EA for Normal People”. I think there’s value in addressing the very practical problems of doing EA: it’s weird, it can be expensive, it’s hard to stay motivated, the community is brainy, people won’t believe your motivations, you have many existing commitments already.
I think the book might benefit from focusing on a target audience.
As a prolific writer of blogs, you seem to be in a very good position to also write a book. Good luck!
Is this the time to bring up better governance again? Why do we allow CEA to be part of a foundation, controlling community assets without community oversight?
If there was functional community oversight (like e.g. EA Germany has), we would know exactly why SBF was forced out of EVF (then CEA) board.
I think this is broadly a correct take. Longtermists care about expected value. Instead, classic EA is about following the evidence.
I perceive this as a very good and thoughtful collection of criticism and good ideas for reform. It’s also very long and dense and I’m not sure how to best interact with it.
Hi, I think this is an interesting experiment, but I want to remind readers that this is not a sustainable strategy for learning. You should not compare your typical work day to a well-prepared cramming session.
I think, on the forum, there should be a clearer distinction between people speaking privately or on behalf of their organization.
Maybe org updates should always be posted by an org account.
I thought the video was really good, and I encourage everyone to watch it, if you’re interested in how to operate with power.
I also recently started reading “How to Hack your beaurocracy”, which seems like a pretty good guide to getting things done in a complex organisation.
I totally agree and I think EA should be less totalizing.
EA indirectly asks us to devalue our own direct communities in order to more effectively help others globally. For most people, this creates a big problem.
I want to see more focus on a version of EA for Normal People.
I have not come across serious abuses of trust, which is surprising even in a high-trustworthiness environment.
For example, actual Fraud can’t be at 0% when there’s so much money around.
The only example I can think of, SBF, seems thoroughly extradited from EA.
I just want to say that I have been very impressed by your response to my post! I agree, I should have done more fact checking before posting and I should have used more charitable language. This has shaped the debate in a combattive way I didn’t intend. I already learned from this and will hold myself to a higher standard in future interactions with the community!
Thanks for holding me to a high standard in return, you have been nothing but nice. This has increased my trust in you personally!
I think that’s a good analysis, and I think we should strive to be a high-trust community.
But: you can’t just tell people to shut up and simply trust. Trust needs to be earned. One effect of democratic processes is that candidates demonstrate their trustworthiness, so after the democratic process, people can trust them.
Right now, you would ask any new EA community member (and most EAs are new) to “just trust other EAs”, on no other basis than “past EAs have been trustworthy”.
I can imagine a few things that important figures can do in order to increase their trustworthiness:
Listen to and engage with the EA community.
Be transparent about their decisions and strategy.
Not being afraid to limit their own power by introducing oversight.
I can also imagine a few things that community members can do to improve their trustworthiness:
be vouched for by other trustworthy people
repeatedly demonstrate good intentions
As it stands now, I don’t trust the EA community to indentify non-trustworthy EAs to me. In a high-trust culture, any abuse of trust should be costly. I have not yet seen an example of this.
I think you’re spot on on one disagreement. Let’s phrase it even more explicitly: You trust EVF to always make the right calls, even in 10 years from now. I don’t.
I believe I have good reasons to assume that even if they have good intentions, they might not act in the community’s favor.
Thank you for doing this important work! I especially like that you’re proactively creating structures that decrease interpersonal risk.