4. The EA movement was pretty useless to me, the other community (Torchbearer community) I was in was significantly more supportive, helpful, etc. despite having been in it for a few months and having been in the EA movement for ~8 years. This has basically solidified that I won’t be broadly participating in EA anymore at least relating to AI safety stuff.
This is not surprising to me.
EA as a whole is not a supportive community, partly because of structural reasons and partly because of the priorities of the people who controls the funding.
Structural reasons: EA is too big, to diverse, and has no clear boundary. I think that to have strong ingroup support, it both has to be clear that who is ingroup, and the group has to be homogeneous enough that everyone is pulling in the same direction, so you know that if you support another member, this will result in the type of thing you care about. EA as a whole does not have this.
Some EA subgroups have this. E.g. a local EA meetup can have a clear ingroup (the people who show up to the meetups regularly) and and a shared goal (helping each other be effective). Or some specific EA org, or group that has settled on some specific goal and method, arguably Torchbearer is in this category?
My working definition for “EA” is that a person is an EA if they think they are (I respect peoples right to self identify), and an org is an EA org, if they would fit in at an EAG.
Priority reasons: Even though the all over structure of EA makes it hard to make it a strongly supportive community, it still falling way short of what it could be. I’ve seen people trying to make it better, and making a difference for people around them, but these initiatives don’t get funded.
I’m happy you found a group that supports you. Thank you for doing AI safety outreach.
This is not surprising to me.
EA as a whole is not a supportive community, partly because of structural reasons and partly because of the priorities of the people who controls the funding.
Structural reasons: EA is too big, to diverse, and has no clear boundary. I think that to have strong ingroup support, it both has to be clear that who is ingroup, and the group has to be homogeneous enough that everyone is pulling in the same direction, so you know that if you support another member, this will result in the type of thing you care about. EA as a whole does not have this.
Some EA subgroups have this. E.g. a local EA meetup can have a clear ingroup (the people who show up to the meetups regularly) and and a shared goal (helping each other be effective). Or some specific EA org, or group that has settled on some specific goal and method, arguably Torchbearer is in this category?
My working definition for “EA” is that a person is an EA if they think they are (I respect peoples right to self identify), and an org is an EA org, if they would fit in at an EAG.
Priority reasons: Even though the all over structure of EA makes it hard to make it a strongly supportive community, it still falling way short of what it could be. I’ve seen people trying to make it better, and making a difference for people around them, but these initiatives don’t get funded.
I’m happy you found a group that supports you.
Thank you for doing AI safety outreach.