EA is growing in ways that degrade it

[paul-crowe]

Example: EA might be attracting grifters

Summary: As EA grows and more money starts being tossed around, the self-interested .

Date: 14th May 2022

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Public responses:

• "Perhaps this anxiety is that I worry about EA being seen to be full of grifters" (31st March 2022)
• The vultures are circling (6th Apr 2022)
• Grifters by type (29th Apr 2022)
• The trust may be going (21st May 2022)
• Chesterson Fences as an immune system against grifters (2nd Sep 2022)

[paul-crowe]

Example: EA has probably passed the peak of trust and is now spending it down

Summary: Before EA became insanely rich, people were there because they cared about the cause. These days, who can be sure?

Date: 28th May 2022

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Public responses:

• Largely overlaps with "EA may be attracting grifters"
• Concerns that "we will see a rush of ever greater numbers of people into our community, far beyond our ability to culturally onboard them" overlap with "Well-kept gardens die by pacifism"

[paul-crowe]

Example: EA lacks community quality controls

Summary: "There are also really strong founder effects in regional EA groups. That is, locals of one area generally seem to converge on one or two causes or approaches being best. Moreover, they often converge not because they moved there to be with those people, but because they 'became' EAs there."

People being loyal to arbitrary things, like geography

Date: 8th Feb 2017

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[paul-crowe]

Example: Well-kept gardens die by pacifism

Summary: 'Eternal September': The idea that a community will permit people who lower the tone and quality of an online community to remain for fear of invoking accusations of censorship. This creates a 'five monkeys' effect after a while, where the standards of the group shift toward the low-quality as the people with higher standards abandon the online space.

Date: 21st Apr 2009

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Public responses:

• Applause Lights (11th Sep 2007)
• Professing and Cheering (2nd Aug 2007)
• CEA on preserving the community (2018)
• Feedback etiquette (19th Mar 2019)
• Raised as a collapse scenario in 2019 (27th Aug 2019)
• Comment curation as a means of keeping discussion orderly (17th Apr 2022)
• User Lizka put together a user manual on norms (28th Apr 2022)
• And a guide (28th Apr 2022)
• Flag the controversial (27th Jul 2022)
• Prepping for an influx on newcomers (16th Aug 2022)
• Here we see an author angry at the community for upholding writing standards (comments also) (4th Sep 2022)

[paul-crowe]

Example: Goodharting on pledges, Highly Committed

Summary: “is referring to the supposed EA tendency to push specifically for people signing the Giving What We Can pledge, or becoming Highly Engaged EAs, which are fairly legible metrics. So, for instance, I am of the opinion that community builders optimising for creating as many HEAs as possible has in fact caused them to select out certain kinds of valuable people, for instance those with unusually good epistemic standards.”

The drive to get pledges and HEAs is turning away people who might be valuable to the cause.

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Public responses: GWWC pledge data

[paul-crowe]

Example: Outreach treats people like malfunctioning utilitarian robots

Summary: “the idea that EAs can be created through rationality training alone should be viewed with skepticism"

The hyper-analytical types of EA are overlooking the role that appealing to emotion plays in gaining support charitable causes. A combination of approaches is needed to prevent counterproductive outreach.

Date: 26th Dec 2015

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Public responses:

• EA discourse being alientating (11th Oct 2015)
• Make EA more emotionally appealing (13th Oct 2015)
• EA is neglecting the heart in favouring the head (9th Nov 2015)
• The role of emotion in giving (24th Dec 2015)
• Big tents (20th May 2022)
• Emotional altruism in effective altruism (5th Jul 2022)
• Calling out EA for making the community unwelcoming to people with different skillsets / outlooks. Suggests being more accepting of others who don't fit the typical EA description (26th Jul 2022)
• Benefits of a large and welcoming EA (22nd Aug 2022)
• EA would benefit from a 'big tent' approach (1st Sep 2022)