Overall I think the rationalist community is concentrated too much in one hub and the secondary and tertiary hubs are weaker than they should be.
The main negatives are - this creates a bit of single-point-of-failure dynamic; imagine the single hub becomes infected by some particularly dangerous meme, or bad community norms - the single hub is still embedded in the wider society of the place where it is located, introducing some systematic bias (the epistemic climate of contemporary US seems increasingly scary; Bay rationalists sometimes seems overcompensating for the insanities of the broader society) - the single hub would be vulnerable to a coordinated attack originating from the environment
There are also advantages of single hub - in theory in a single hub it is easy to visit people and form connections; in practice it seems this is true in Berkeley, less true in the whole Bay where travel distances are comparable to flight times between European cities
And there is the huge advantage of Bay - being close to the nexus of power and the most future-shaping place is extremely important (as explained by Scott and others)
Advantages of more hubs are - in my view, could support more strains of thoughts / more experiments with community / more opportunities where people can lead things— less fragility - more of the total available talent used; some people will just not move to the Bay (will not get visas / can not bear with culture /....)
Instead of thinking “should we find the location X and move The hub” I would suggest thinking about optimal allocation of people in a structure of networked places
- which secondary hubs should grow / grow faster / be founded - how to create links; people should consider moving temporarily between the hubs (for eg half a year or a year), even in the direction “Bay → elsewhere”—this is often the best way to form links
What should be avoided - some “holier-than-thou” dynamic where people who made the sacrifice of moving to the Bay and living there even if they think it terrible place with low quality of life assume that people who did not made the sacrifice are not sufficiently dedicated to the mission or similar; hence the rest of the world can be ignored
Overall I think the rationalist community is concentrated too much in one hub and the secondary and tertiary hubs are weaker than they should be.
The main negatives are
- this creates a bit of single-point-of-failure dynamic; imagine the single hub becomes infected by some particularly dangerous meme, or bad community norms
- the single hub is still embedded in the wider society of the place where it is located, introducing some systematic bias (the epistemic climate of contemporary US seems increasingly scary; Bay rationalists sometimes seems overcompensating for the insanities of the broader society)
- the single hub would be vulnerable to a coordinated attack originating from the environment
There are also advantages of single hub
- in theory in a single hub it is easy to visit people and form connections; in practice it seems this is true in Berkeley, less true in the whole Bay where travel distances are comparable to flight times between European cities
And there is the huge advantage of Bay
- being close to the nexus of power and the most future-shaping place is extremely important (as explained by Scott and others)
Advantages of more hubs are
- in my view, could support more strains of thoughts / more experiments with community / more opportunities where people can lead things—
less fragility
- more of the total available talent used; some people will just not move to the Bay (will not get visas / can not bear with culture /....)
Instead of thinking “should we find the location X and move The hub” I would suggest thinking about optimal allocation of people in a structure of networked places
- which secondary hubs should grow / grow faster / be founded
- how to create links; people should consider moving temporarily between the hubs (for eg half a year or a year), even in the direction “Bay → elsewhere”—this is often the best way to form links
What should be avoided
- some “holier-than-thou” dynamic where people who made the sacrifice of moving to the Bay and living there even if they think it terrible place with low quality of life assume that people who did not made the sacrifice are not sufficiently dedicated to the mission or similar; hence the rest of the world can be ignored
I think the robustness-fragility point is a very good one, and want to highlight it as I haven’t seen it in discussions about hubs much.