Co-founder of Concentric Policies
Talk to me about American governance/political systems/democracy
My journey to EA:
2009: start arriving at utilitarian-adjacent ethics
Dec 2012: read Peter Singer’s Famine Affluence and Morality
Circa 2013/14: find my way to EA through googling about Singer and FAaM
2014-2019: in the orbit of EA. i.e. will talk to people about morality and utilitarian stuff but not very engaged in the community aside from attending uni club meeting every once and while.
2020: EAGxVirtual (I’m starting to move from the orbit closer to the actual community)
2022: Dive deep into the community. And now we arrive at the present day.
I think the title is misleading. Africa is a large continent, and this was just one fellowship of ~15 people (of which I was one). There are some promising things going on in EA communities in Africa. At the same time, and I speak for several people when I say this, EA community building seems quite neglected in Africa, especially given how far purchasing power goes. And many community building efforts to date have been off the mark in one way or another.
I expect this to improve with time. But I think a better barometer of the health of EA in Africa is the communities that have developed around Africa metropolises (e.g. EA Abuja, EA Nairobi).
I also dislike Fumba being framed to the broader EA community as the perfect compromise. Fumba town was arguably the thing that the residents most disliked. There are a lot of valid reasons as to why the residency took place in Fumba, but this general rosy framing of the residency overlooks the issues it had and, more importantly, the lessons learned from them.