I agree with most of the points you’re making here.
The rationalist/EA community doesn’t reward prosocial behavior enough.
I think there’s a continued debate about whether these groups should behave more like a professional circle or as a social community. (In practice, both spheres are a bit of both.) I think from the lens of EA/rats as a social group, we don’t really provide enough emotional support and mental health resources. However, insofar as EA is intended to be a professional circle trying to do hard things, it makes sense why these resources might be deprioritized.
There is tension between the stance that “EA is just a professional circle” and the (common) thesis that EA is a moral ideal. The latter carries the connotation of “things you will be rewarded for doing” (by others sharing the ideal). Likely some will claim that, in their philosophy, there is no such connotation: but it is on them to emphasize this, since this runs contrary to the intuitive perception of morality by most people. People who take up the ideology expecting the implied community aspect might understandably feel disappointed or even betrayed when they find it lacking, which might have happened to the OP.
As I said, cooperation is rational. There are, roughly speaking, two mechanisms to achieve cooperation: the “acausal” way and the “causal” way. The acausal way means doing something out of abstract reasoning that, if many others do the same, it will be in everyone’s benefit, and moreover many others follow the same reasoning. This might work even without a community, in principle.
However, the more robust mechanism is causal: tit-for-tat. This requires that other people actually reward you for doing the thing. One way to reward is by money, which EA does to some extent: however, it also encourages members to take pay cuts and/or make donations. Another way to reward is by the things money cannot buy: respect, friendship, emotional support and generally conveying the sense that you’re a cherished member of the community. On this front, more could be done IMO.
Even if we accept that EA is nothing more than a professional circle, it is still lacking in the respects I pointed out. In many professional circles, you work in an office with peers, leading naturally to a network of personal connections. On the other hand, AFAICT many EAs work independently/remotedly (I am certainly one of those), which denies the same benefits.
“Virtue is its own reward” is a nice thing to believe in when you feel respected, protected and loved. When you feel tired, lonely and afraid, and nobody cares at all, it’s very hard to understand why you should be making big sacrifices for the sake of virtue. But, hey, people are different. Maybe, for you virtue is truly, unconditionally, its own reward, and a sufficient one at that. And maybe EA is a community professional circle only for people who are that stoic and selfless. But, if so, please put the warning in big letters on the lid.
The EA movement is rather like a church. (I have in mind the Catholic and Orthodox churches, not the new-fangled outfits that developed after the Reformation.) The prominent philosophers, like Peter Singer, are the prophets. The people who found and run organisations like GiveWell are the clergy. There are the rank and file members, who are the monks toiling on the work of the church. There are lay preachers, such as Scott Alexander. There are ordinary folk who do no more than tithe to the approved charities or turn vegetarian. And caught up in all that there are a few who have argued themselves into an unsustainable religious mania.
I agree with most of the points you’re making here.
I think there’s a continued debate about whether these groups should behave more like a professional circle or as a social community. (In practice, both spheres are a bit of both.) I think from the lens of EA/rats as a social group, we don’t really provide enough emotional support and mental health resources. However, insofar as EA is intended to be a professional circle trying to do hard things, it makes sense why these resources might be deprioritized.
There is tension between the stance that “EA is just a professional circle” and the (common) thesis that EA is a moral ideal. The latter carries the connotation of “things you will be rewarded for doing” (by others sharing the ideal). Likely some will claim that, in their philosophy, there is no such connotation: but it is on them to emphasize this, since this runs contrary to the intuitive perception of morality by most people. People who take up the ideology expecting the implied community aspect might understandably feel disappointed or even betrayed when they find it lacking, which might have happened to the OP.
As I said, cooperation is rational. There are, roughly speaking, two mechanisms to achieve cooperation: the “acausal” way and the “causal” way. The acausal way means doing something out of abstract reasoning that, if many others do the same, it will be in everyone’s benefit, and moreover many others follow the same reasoning. This might work even without a community, in principle.
However, the more robust mechanism is causal: tit-for-tat. This requires that other people actually reward you for doing the thing. One way to reward is by money, which EA does to some extent: however, it also encourages members to take pay cuts and/or make donations. Another way to reward is by the things money cannot buy: respect, friendship, emotional support and generally conveying the sense that you’re a cherished member of the community. On this front, more could be done IMO.
Even if we accept that EA is nothing more than a professional circle, it is still lacking in the respects I pointed out. In many professional circles, you work in an office with peers, leading naturally to a network of personal connections. On the other hand, AFAICT many EAs work independently/remotedly (I am certainly one of those), which denies the same benefits.
It is a professional circle founded on a moral ideal. The former to be Effective, the latter to be Altruistic.
It is an old saying that virtue is its own reward.
“Virtue is its own reward” is a nice thing to believe in when you feel respected, protected and loved. When you feel tired, lonely and afraid, and nobody cares at all, it’s very hard to understand why you should be making big sacrifices for the sake of virtue. But, hey, people are different. Maybe, for you virtue is truly, unconditionally, its own reward, and a sufficient one at that. And maybe EA is a
communityprofessional circle only for people who are that stoic and selfless. But, if so, please put the warning in big letters on the lid.I have 700 warnings in big letters here!
The EA movement is rather like a church. (I have in mind the Catholic and Orthodox churches, not the new-fangled outfits that developed after the Reformation.) The prominent philosophers, like Peter Singer, are the prophets. The people who found and run organisations like GiveWell are the clergy. There are the rank and file members, who are the monks toiling on the work of the church. There are lay preachers, such as Scott Alexander. There are ordinary folk who do no more than tithe to the approved charities or turn vegetarian. And caught up in all that there are a few who have argued themselves into an unsustainable religious mania.