I’d like to talk a bit about the sense in which the rationalist community does or doesn’t have “people in positions of leadership”, and how this compares to eg an LDS ward (per Adele’s comparison). I’m unfortunately not sure how to be brief here, but I’d appreciate thoughts anyway from those who have them, because, as CFAR and I re-enter the public space, I am unsure what role to try to occupy exactly, and I am also unsure how to accurately communicate what roles I am and am not willing to be in (so as to not cause others to inaccurately believe I’ll catch things).
(This discussion isn’t directly to do with psychosis; but it bears on Adele’s questions about what CFAR leadership or other rationality community leaders are responsible for, and what to predict from us, and what would be good here.)
On my understanding, church parishes, and some other traditional communities, often have people who intentionally:
are taken as a role model by many, especially young people;
try to act in such a way that it’ll be fine for people to imitate them;
try to care for the well-being of the community as a whole (“is our parish healthy? what small nudges might make us a little healthier or more thriving? what minor trouble-spots are beginning, that might ease up if I or another volunteer heads over and listens and tries to help everyone act well?”).
a/b/c are here their primary duty: they attend to the community for its own sake, as a calling and public role. (Maybe they also have a day job, but a/b/c are primary while they are doing their parish duties, at least.)
Relatedly, they are trusted by many in the community, and many in the community will follow their requests, partly because their requests make sense: “So-and-so had a death in the family recently, and Martha is organizing meals for them; please see Martha if you’re willing to provide some meals.” So they are coordinating a larger effort (that many, many contribute to) to keep the parish healthy and whole. (Also relatedly: the parish is already fairly healthy, and a large majority of those in it would like it to be healthier, and sees this as a matter of small nudges rather than large upsets or revolutions.)
Eliezer is clearly *not* in a position of community leadership in this sense. His primary focus (even during those hours in which he is interacting with the rationalist community) is not the rationalist community’s health or wholeness, but is rather AI risk. He does make occasional posts to try to nudge the community toward health and wholeness, but overall his interactions with us are not those of someone who is trying to be a role model or community-tender/leader.
My guess is that almost nobody, perhaps actually nobody, sees themself as in a position of community leadership in this sense. (Or maybe Oliver and Lightcone do? I am not sure and would be interested to hear from them here).
Complicating the issue is the question of who is/isn’t “in” “the” rationalist community that a given set of leaders is aiming to tend. I believe many of the bad mental health events have historically happened in the rationalist community’s periphery, in group houses with mostly unemployed people who lack the tethers or stablising influences that people employed by mainstream EA or rationalist organizations, or by eg Google, have. (My guess is that here there are even fewer “community leaders”; eg I doubt Oli and Lightcone see themselves as tenders of this space.)
(A quick google suggests that LDS wards typically have between 200 and 500 members, many of which I assume are organized into families; the bay area “rationalist-adjacent” community includes several thousand people, mostly not in families.)
In the early days of CFAR (2012-2017, basically), and in the earlier days of the 2009-2011 pre-CFAR rationality community, I felt some of this duty. I tried to track bad mental health events in the broader rationalist community and to help organize people to care for people who acutely needed caring for, where I could. This is how I came to spend 200+ hours on psychosis. My main felt duty wasn’t on community wholeness — it was on AI risk, and on recruiting for AI risk — but I felt a bit as though it was my backyard and I wanted my own backyard to be good, partly because I cared, partly because I thought people might expect it of me, partly because I thought people might blame/credit me for it.
I mostly quit doing this around 2018, due partly to Michael Vassar seeming to declare memetic war on me in a way I didn’t know how to deal with, partly to some parts of EA also saying that CFAR and I were bad in the wake of the Brent Dill fiasco, partly to “the community” having gotten huge in a way that was harder and harder for me to keep track of or to feel as much connection to, and partly to having less personal psychological slack for personal reasons.
(I’m not saying any of my motivations or actions here were good necessarily; I’m trying to be accurate.)
(TBC, I still felt responsible for the well-being of people at CFAR events, and of people in the immediate aftermath of CFAR events, just not for “the rationalist community” broadly. And I still tried to help when I found out about a bad situation where I thought I might have some traction, but I stopped proactively extending feelers of the sort that would put me in that situation.)
Another part of the puzzle is that Eliezer’s Sequences and HPMOR cast a huge “come here if you want to be meaningful; everything is meaningless except this work, and it’s happening here” narrative beacon, and many many came who nobody regarded themself as having ~any responsibility for, I think. (In contrast, EY’s and Nate’s recent book does not do this; it still says AI risks are important, but it actively doesn’t undermine peoples’ local meaning-making and lives.)
I and CFAR should probably figure out better what my and our roles will be going forward, and should try hard to *visibly* not take up more responsibility than we’re expecting to meet. I’m interested also in what our responsibilities are, here.
I’m currently keen on:
Actively attend to the well-being of those at our events, or those in the immediate aftermath of our events, where we can; and
Put some thought into which “rationality habits” or similar, if percolated out from CFAR’s workshops or for that matter from my LW posts and/or my actions broadly, will make the community healthier (eg, will reduce or at least not increase any local psychosis-prone-ness of these communities);
Put a little bit of listening-effort into understanding the broader state of the communities our participants come from, and return to, and spread our memes in, since this is necessary for (2). (Only a little, because it is hard and I am lazy.)
Don’t otherwise attempt to tend the various overlapping rationality or bay area rationality communities.
A key part of what makes LDS wards work, is the callings system. The bishop (leader of the ward) has a large number of roles he needs to fill. He does this by giving arbitrary ward members a calling, which essentially is just assigning a person to a role, and telling them what they need to do, with the implication that it is your duty to fulfill it (though it’s not explicitly punished, if you decline). Some examples are things like “Choir director”, “Sunbeams (3-4 year olds I think) teacher”, “Young Men’s president”, “Young Men’s Secretary”, “Usher”. It’s intentionally set up so that approximately every active member currently has a calling. New callings are announced at the beginning of church to the entire ward, and the bishop tries to make sure no one has the same calling for too long.
Wards are organized into Stakes, which are led by the “Stake President” and use a similar system. “Bishop” itself, is a calling at this level. And every few months, there will be a “Stake Conference” which will bring all the wards together for church. There are often youth activities at this level, quite a lot of effort is put into making sure young Mormons have plenty of chances to meet other young Mormons.
(Maybe you already know all that, but Just including that since I think the system works pretty well in practice and is not very well-known outside of Mormon spaces. I’m not suggesting adopting it.)
Those generally sound like good directions to take things. I’m most worried about 2, I think there’s potentially something toxic about the framing of “rationality habits” in general, which has previously led to a culture of there being all these rationality “tricks” that would solve all your problems (I know CFAR doesn’t frame things like this, I just think it’s an inherent way that the concept of “rationality habit” slips in people’s minds), which in turn leads to people uncritically trying dubious techniques that fuck them up.
And I agree that the rationality community hasn’t really had that, and I would also say that we haven’t supported the people who have tried to fill that role.
I’m most worried about 2, I think there’s potentially something toxic about the framing of “rationality habits” in general, which has previously led to a culture of there being all these rationality “tricks” that would solve all your problems … which in turn leads to people uncritically trying dubious techniques that fuck them up.
Could you say a bit more here, please?
(not a direct response, but:) My belief has been that there are loads of people in the bay area doing dubious things that mess them up (eg tulpas, drugs, weird sex things, weird cult things—both in the rationalist diaspora, and in the bay area broadly), but this is mostly people aiming to be edgy and do “weird/cool/powerful” things, not people trying CFAR techniques as such.
I’d like to talk a bit about the sense in which the rationalist community does or doesn’t have “people in positions of leadership”, and how this compares to eg an LDS ward (per Adele’s comparison). I’m unfortunately not sure how to be brief here, but I’d appreciate thoughts anyway from those who have them, because, as CFAR and I re-enter the public space, I am unsure what role to try to occupy exactly, and I am also unsure how to accurately communicate what roles I am and am not willing to be in (so as to not cause others to inaccurately believe I’ll catch things).
(This discussion isn’t directly to do with psychosis; but it bears on Adele’s questions about what CFAR leadership or other rationality community leaders are responsible for, and what to predict from us, and what would be good here.)
On my understanding, church parishes, and some other traditional communities, often have people who intentionally:
are taken as a role model by many, especially young people;
try to act in such a way that it’ll be fine for people to imitate them;
try to care for the well-being of the community as a whole (“is our parish healthy? what small nudges might make us a little healthier or more thriving? what minor trouble-spots are beginning, that might ease up if I or another volunteer heads over and listens and tries to help everyone act well?”).
a/b/c are here their primary duty: they attend to the community for its own sake, as a calling and public role. (Maybe they also have a day job, but a/b/c are primary while they are doing their parish duties, at least.)
Relatedly, they are trusted by many in the community, and many in the community will follow their requests, partly because their requests make sense: “So-and-so had a death in the family recently, and Martha is organizing meals for them; please see Martha if you’re willing to provide some meals.” So they are coordinating a larger effort (that many, many contribute to) to keep the parish healthy and whole. (Also relatedly: the parish is already fairly healthy, and a large majority of those in it would like it to be healthier, and sees this as a matter of small nudges rather than large upsets or revolutions.)
Eliezer is clearly *not* in a position of community leadership in this sense. His primary focus (even during those hours in which he is interacting with the rationalist community) is not the rationalist community’s health or wholeness, but is rather AI risk. He does make occasional posts to try to nudge the community toward health and wholeness, but overall his interactions with us are not those of someone who is trying to be a role model or community-tender/leader.
My guess is that almost nobody, perhaps actually nobody, sees themself as in a position of community leadership in this sense. (Or maybe Oliver and Lightcone do? I am not sure and would be interested to hear from them here).
Complicating the issue is the question of who is/isn’t “in” “the” rationalist community that a given set of leaders is aiming to tend. I believe many of the bad mental health events have historically happened in the rationalist community’s periphery, in group houses with mostly unemployed people who lack the tethers or stablising influences that people employed by mainstream EA or rationalist organizations, or by eg Google, have. (My guess is that here there are even fewer “community leaders”; eg I doubt Oli and Lightcone see themselves as tenders of this space.)
(A quick google suggests that LDS wards typically have between 200 and 500 members, many of which I assume are organized into families; the bay area “rationalist-adjacent” community includes several thousand people, mostly not in families.)
In the early days of CFAR (2012-2017, basically), and in the earlier days of the 2009-2011 pre-CFAR rationality community, I felt some of this duty. I tried to track bad mental health events in the broader rationalist community and to help organize people to care for people who acutely needed caring for, where I could. This is how I came to spend 200+ hours on psychosis. My main felt duty wasn’t on community wholeness — it was on AI risk, and on recruiting for AI risk — but I felt a bit as though it was my backyard and I wanted my own backyard to be good, partly because I cared, partly because I thought people might expect it of me, partly because I thought people might blame/credit me for it.
I mostly quit doing this around 2018, due partly to Michael Vassar seeming to declare memetic war on me in a way I didn’t know how to deal with, partly to some parts of EA also saying that CFAR and I were bad in the wake of the Brent Dill fiasco, partly to “the community” having gotten huge in a way that was harder and harder for me to keep track of or to feel as much connection to, and partly to having less personal psychological slack for personal reasons.
(I’m not saying any of my motivations or actions here were good necessarily; I’m trying to be accurate.)
(TBC, I still felt responsible for the well-being of people at CFAR events, and of people in the immediate aftermath of CFAR events, just not for “the rationalist community” broadly. And I still tried to help when I found out about a bad situation where I thought I might have some traction, but I stopped proactively extending feelers of the sort that would put me in that situation.)
Another part of the puzzle is that Eliezer’s Sequences and HPMOR cast a huge “come here if you want to be meaningful; everything is meaningless except this work, and it’s happening here” narrative beacon, and many many came who nobody regarded themself as having ~any responsibility for, I think. (In contrast, EY’s and Nate’s recent book does not do this; it still says AI risks are important, but it actively doesn’t undermine peoples’ local meaning-making and lives.)
I and CFAR should probably figure out better what my and our roles will be going forward, and should try hard to *visibly* not take up more responsibility than we’re expecting to meet. I’m interested also in what our responsibilities are, here.
I’m currently keen on:
Actively attend to the well-being of those at our events, or those in the immediate aftermath of our events, where we can; and
Put some thought into which “rationality habits” or similar, if percolated out from CFAR’s workshops or for that matter from my LW posts and/or my actions broadly, will make the community healthier (eg, will reduce or at least not increase any local psychosis-prone-ness of these communities);
Put a little bit of listening-effort into understanding the broader state of the communities our participants come from, and return to, and spread our memes in, since this is necessary for (2). (Only a little, because it is hard and I am lazy.)
Don’t otherwise attempt to tend the various overlapping rationality or bay area rationality communities.
Thoughts appreciated.
A key part of what makes LDS wards work, is the callings system. The bishop (leader of the ward) has a large number of roles he needs to fill. He does this by giving arbitrary ward members a calling, which essentially is just assigning a person to a role, and telling them what they need to do, with the implication that it is your duty to fulfill it (though it’s not explicitly punished, if you decline). Some examples are things like “Choir director”, “Sunbeams (3-4 year olds I think) teacher”, “Young Men’s president”, “Young Men’s Secretary”, “Usher”. It’s intentionally set up so that approximately every active member currently has a calling. New callings are announced at the beginning of church to the entire ward, and the bishop tries to make sure no one has the same calling for too long.
Wards are organized into Stakes, which are led by the “Stake President” and use a similar system. “Bishop” itself, is a calling at this level. And every few months, there will be a “Stake Conference” which will bring all the wards together for church. There are often youth activities at this level, quite a lot of effort is put into making sure young Mormons have plenty of chances to meet other young Mormons.
(Maybe you already know all that, but Just including that since I think the system works pretty well in practice and is not very well-known outside of Mormon spaces. I’m not suggesting adopting it.)
Those generally sound like good directions to take things. I’m most worried about 2, I think there’s potentially something toxic about the framing of “rationality habits” in general, which has previously led to a culture of there being all these rationality “tricks” that would solve all your problems (I know CFAR doesn’t frame things like this, I just think it’s an inherent way that the concept of “rationality habit” slips in people’s minds), which in turn leads to people uncritically trying dubious techniques that fuck them up.
And I agree that the rationality community hasn’t really had that, and I would also say that we haven’t supported the people who have tried to fill that role.
Could you say a bit more here, please?
(not a direct response, but:) My belief has been that there are loads of people in the bay area doing dubious things that mess them up (eg tulpas, drugs, weird sex things, weird cult things—both in the rationalist diaspora, and in the bay area broadly), but this is mostly people aiming to be edgy and do “weird/cool/powerful” things, not people trying CFAR techniques as such.
(Nevermind, after thinking about it a bit more I think I get it.)