EA is too zealous

[paul-crowe]

Example: Don't try to capture all the value you create

Summary: "We may need to learn to say, by habit and in nearly all forums, "Here is a cool rationalist project", not, "Mine alone is the highest-return in expected utilons per marginal dollar project.""

"if there's a group that's not willing to share the rationalists they create or mention to them that other Neo-Enlightenment projects might exist, then any common, centralized rationalist resources could remove the mention of their project as a cool thing to do."

Date: 29th Mar 2009

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses:

• The whole "we're living in the most important century" thing
• Aim for MORE effective, not the MOST effective (2nd Jan 2022)
• The EA mindset (26 Mar 2022)

[paul-crowe]

Example: Burnout / misery trap

Summary: People get burnt out trying to maintain the momentum of their initial enthusiasm. There's a lot of slog. Also crucifying yourself for the good of others.

Date: -

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses:

• Superhero bias (1st Dec 2007)
• Affective Death Spirals (2nd Dec 2007)
• Burnout self-care (23rd Oct 2015)
• Burnout advice (7th Nov 2018) (23rd Oct 2015)
• Stepping away (22nd Jun 2022)
• More advice on burnout (10th Mar 2021)
• Chill (7th Apr 2022)
• Maintaining work/life balance (27th Apr 2022)
• EA Mental Health survey 2022 reports that of EAs with mental health issues, 48% of them had struggled with burnout (however 73% of them had never heard of EA's Mental Health Navigator) (2nd May 2022)
• Which also warrants mention of the EA Mental Health Navigator
• EA gives mixed messages on burnout (13th June 2022)
• EA dedicates (23rd Jun 2022)
• Manage expectations, reduce exposure to EA culture if need be (20th Jul 2022)
• "Bad" EAs in misery traps (12th Jul 2022)

[paul-crowe]

Example: LVC: Fitting in with one group makes it harder to fit in with other groups + me being annoying

Summary: "In my research for this post I asked a friend 'Did I become more annoying when I got into the whole EA stuff? It would be helpful if you could say yes because it will help me with this point I'm trying to make' And he said 'Well there was this thing where you were a bit annoying to have conversations with about the world and politics and stuff because you had this whole EA thing and so thought that everything else wasn't important and wasn't worth talking about because the obvious answer was do whatever is most effective... but tbh otherwise not really, you were always kind of annoying"

Date: 21st Apr 2022

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses:

• Unmaintainable enthusiasm leads to burnout
• Limiting social activity to other EAs and talking about nothing but EA feeds into culty objections

[paul-crowe]

Example: LVC: Why do people overwork?

Summary: Despite all the advice on burnout, many EAs are still workaholics

Date: 24th Mar 2022

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses:

• Burnout can be enjoyable as it happens (5th Jul 2016)
• Therapists familiar with EA may be needed (13th Jun 2019)

[paul-crowe]

Example: The fractal altruism pipeline

Summary: EA shifting to fractal altruism via burnout

Date: 24th Feb 2022

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses: This is talking about burnout being the trapdoor which drops people out of EA and into something else. Address burnout and you address this.

• Project idea: interviewing people who've left EA. Might provide insight on why people are leaving, but risks appearing culty/stalkerish. (29th June 2022)