Thanks for the article!
It seems right to me that strategic coordination and better communication among various EA nodes is essential. I’d love to see more thinking and action on the “improving movement coordination” like you are demonstrating, so thank you. We could host some collaborative events with complexity folks at EA Toronto maybe? Though I imagine knowing something about what higher complexity strategic thinking is currently being done is a wiser first step. What does Systems Change in EA (on FB) think? The CEA def has some thoughts: https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/strategy/ - or is your sense that the thoughts are still lower on the abstraction ladder than they could be?
I also think it is appropriate that many bits of the movement are only vaguely connected through the highest order question of EA—“how do we do the most good, act on that, and learn from our actions”—yet free to propose their own subquestions and seek answers. Since much of the meta framing itself is an open question, there feels to me to be leverage in more bottom-up processes too—a sort of “everyone get some basic skills, now go do whatever you think is best, then we’ll regroup and reflect, then go out and try again” kind of approach. And of course, not everyone can or wants to be part of more involved/meta reflections. Yet overall I feel you raise a dang good question to bring up regularly.
I’d speculate the CEA’s focus on reducing risky actions in interactions with individual EA commmunities is in part a reflection of a more bottom-up orientation. If you want a group to experientially explore without anchoring them too much with your framework, you can give them tools and then step back until/unless they come to an answer you have good reason to believe is not the right one.
I particularly appreciate your thought that people can not share information or not feel their work is meaningful if not aware of a broader community strategy though. I wonder how often this happens and how… Maybe a future EA Survey could ask “have you worked on a project which you believe is helpful but would not classify as EA-adjacent”.
Yuli Jadov
Karma: 22
First, this strikes me as a great example of the value of the EA community. Most individuals / orgs, like me, will not find the bandwidth to make their own resources and strategies for better response to uncommon scenarios from scratch. Thank you for these.
Second, I think the decision making tool for triage / resource allocation in particular might be really valuable to share. I’m curious if other readers of this comment would agree. I suspect many individuals and orgs in EA struggled to reprioritize around covid, for example. So, sharing may improve overall community calibration. (With the Response Plan & guidelines you’ve shared adding very valuable context and content for adjustment as you recommend in the post.)
Third, is there an EA temp agency somewhere? I’m imagining the fit difference between that and a normal temp agency is valuable enough even for a temp role, though I’m not certain of it. I ask because ALLFED has had the talent, desire, and mission fit for activating response teams and has thought through this for 3 years. Rapid access to organization capacity may help others make up their shortfall as needed. This seems worth some funder attention, I think.
Lastly, to the degree that collaboration with key stakeholders is practical, I also think a resilience centre and a rapid response task force in EA both have immense value. So I want to voice my public support for these. I’ll also reach out to see what help I can most sensibly provide.
Side note: My experience community building in Toronto has given me the strong intuition that really healthy relationships are a vital safety feature of high potential action networks such as a Task Force, rather than a nice-to-have. So I really appreciate that your P Planning meetings 4, 5, and 6 are assessment oriented, that you clarify ALLFED’s role in a disaster to include reducing poor decision making, and that your response team response includes team wellness meetings. Thank you for these too.