It might be worth to think more about what we mean with the term hub. The distinguishing feature about the Bay Area isn’t that it has LessWrong or SlateStarCodex meetups that you can’t find anywhere else.
People that moved to the Bay Area frequently reported afterwards that finding connection to other people in the Bay Area is a lot harder then they expected because a lot of the events where rationalist meet each other aren’t open to the general public.
The distinguishing feature of the Bay Area is that it employs plenty of people in jobs that are adjacent to the community through orgs. If a person wants to work in a community adjacent org, applying to one of those jobs makes sense and that does cause brain drain. It turn out that the kind of people who want to invest energy into community building and run meetups outside of the Bay Area are also the kind of people who would like to work in adjacent orgs.
It’s good when many cities have meetups but that has little to do with the question about hubs.
Currently, it seems like there are a bunch of people who are looking to relocate and who would feel like it would be good to relocate to the same place as other rationalists.
So, people most qualified to build community and organize meetups often happen to be people who want to do more than merely build community and organize meetups. They often want a community-adjacent job, and they move where such jobs exist.
To have sustainable rationalist communities outside of Bay Area, we need one of the following:
a) people qualified to build community and organize meetups, who are not interested in this type of job;
b) sufficiently large local community so that there are enough replacements for the people who leave;
c) community-adjacent jobs outside of Bay Area;
d) remote work in the community-adjacent jobs.
It could be different solutions for different cities. Option (a) is a question of luck, whether you have such people in your city. Option (b) is a chicken-and-egg problem, if you don’t already have a large community, it gives you no advice how to create it. Option (c) is what people in given city should think about. Option (d) is how people already in Bay Area can support them.
It might be worth to think more about what we mean with the term hub. The distinguishing feature about the Bay Area isn’t that it has LessWrong or SlateStarCodex meetups that you can’t find anywhere else.
People that moved to the Bay Area frequently reported afterwards that finding connection to other people in the Bay Area is a lot harder then they expected because a lot of the events where rationalist meet each other aren’t open to the general public.
The distinguishing feature of the Bay Area is that it employs plenty of people in jobs that are adjacent to the community through orgs. If a person wants to work in a community adjacent org, applying to one of those jobs makes sense and that does cause brain drain. It turn out that the kind of people who want to invest energy into community building and run meetups outside of the Bay Area are also the kind of people who would like to work in adjacent orgs.
It’s good when many cities have meetups but that has little to do with the question about hubs.
Currently, it seems like there are a bunch of people who are looking to relocate and who would feel like it would be good to relocate to the same place as other rationalists.
So, people most qualified to build community and organize meetups often happen to be people who want to do more than merely build community and organize meetups. They often want a community-adjacent job, and they move where such jobs exist.
To have sustainable rationalist communities outside of Bay Area, we need one of the following:
a) people qualified to build community and organize meetups, who are not interested in this type of job;
b) sufficiently large local community so that there are enough replacements for the people who leave;
c) community-adjacent jobs outside of Bay Area;
d) remote work in the community-adjacent jobs.
It could be different solutions for different cities. Option (a) is a question of luck, whether you have such people in your city. Option (b) is a chicken-and-egg problem, if you don’t already have a large community, it gives you no advice how to create it. Option (c) is what people in given city should think about. Option (d) is how people already in Bay Area can support them.