I agree with lots of this but my takeaway headline is a bit different - not 'the inner circle of cool EAs doesn't exist' but more, this desire for status doesn't go away, no matter how far up the ladder you climb, so don't delude yourself that 'if I only go to X Cool Party I've Made It' (related twitter thread: https://twitter.com/contemplatonist/status/1647578257762443265)
Like you point out that a person's high-EA-status-y connections seem normal and boring to them... But like, there are probably some committed EAs who not only don't personally know Eliezer Yudkowsky, but also don't personally know *anyone* approaching that level of EA celebrity. I'm close to quite a few people who work for major EA orgs, or who are 1 or 2 removes from very well-known EAs, and like... I think this *does* give me some level of status/inclusion/insideriness that a person doesn't automatically get, just by virtue of being interested in EA and caring about all this. Even though as you say, that doesn't mean I or these other people are "special".
Apr 20, 2023·edited Apr 20, 2023Liked by Ozy Brennan
I like the overall sentiment, but the actual claims feel kinda... gaslighty? Or like they're trying to convince people to feel better without much regard for how true they are.
More concretely:
- Listing a bunch of inner circles that most readers aren't in, then saying "But no one gets to participate in all the private conversations and get invited to all the neat parties and go to all the invite-only retreats", seems... obviously not what most people are worried about here.
- In general consoling yourself with the thought that other people are insecure doesn't seem like the best strategy (e.g. "most likely, they have the same boredom and insecurity and relationship stress and loneliness that you do"). Firstly it may not be true; secondly, even if it is true, I'd expect it to be a kinda unhealthy line of thinking, cos now seeing other people happy is an attack on your defenses.
- I expect a wide range of people will read this, but that it's targeted at a much smaller range of people. E.g. mentioning being friends with Scott and Eliezer already puts you in an inner circle by most people's standards. (Also idk how this was intended, but playfully insulting your friends is generally a way of countersignalling closeness, which... is fine, just seems like a weird place for it.)
I prefer focusing on Lewis' take in his original essay, which I read as more like: no amount of status will cure status anxiety, and so if you don't focus on what matters now, then you'll never focus on what matters. (To be fair, you do touch on this at various points, although not quite phrased in a way that resonates with me.)
It was very interesting to read your opinion on this. I completely agree with you that being comforted by thoughts of other people's insecurities is not the best strategy.
I agree with everything you said, but find it kind of ironic that it's you who's saying it. I would consider you to be fairly unambiguously in the group of high status EAs.
I am reading a bit into the subtext of your comment (i.e. I assume that if you felt there was an inner circle of EAs that included you, you would have said so), so this could be wrong, but it sounds like you have some concerns about getting into or being in the inner circle. "Even Richard Ngo worries that he's not in the innermost circle" seems like a good point in favor of Ozy's argument. I wouldn't call this consoling with the thought that other people are insecure, so much as pointing out the absurdity of status anxiety by showing that it is not well-correlated with actual status.
"it sounds like you have some concerns about getting into or being in the inner circle."
Hmm, I'm curious what made you think this. Was it that I didn't talk about my experiences of inner circles? That's mostly because I think it's a bad ontology. My guess is that if you pick any group of "core EAs", the most common thing they'll feel towards that group is something like "ahhhh this group is nowhere near being able to do all the things we need to do!" (That's how I feel at least, along with a certain fondness.) And so at least on a day to day level, my experience mostly involves casting around for ways to fill those gaps, in a way which doesn't involve thinking much about (internal) status dynamics. (It helps that I'm doing pretty different things from other people - I imagine this would be more stressful if I were just doing straightforward alignment research.)
If you queried my subconscious brain, I think it would explain not thinking about those dynamics by saying something like "of course anyone who can help fill the biggest gaps will be given a bunch of status". I don't fully believe this on an intellectual level, but maybe I think of it as a baseline from which to depart. I do also sometimes think about whether broader status dynamics in the community are working well - in particular about how to reallocate status from people who throw parties to people who do external-facing community-building.
Yeah, my comment was speculative, and I hope my first reply did an appropriate job of conveying that speculativeness. I guessed that if you felt you had experience in what an inner circle, you would have said so.
One time on Twitter in 2022, I was trying to explain that EA has a big spectrum of views, sometimes conflicting, and SBF (!) made it clear I did not have authority to speak of such things, since I was not a "core EA"
I am a Giving What We Can Pledge relative outsider, but I have dated some "higher status EA folks", and yes, this is true. I was surprised at how socially isolated some objectively cool people were in practice. When a lot of the people you are meeting are observing you from a professional context, it is not conducive to intimacy.
I guess I like to try and reframe that there are people only I know well and whether they are powerful is less important than that we spend time together and like each others company. To me, they are the cool secret group chat.
Any theories about what causes this dynamic? Answer now before I give my answer in the next paragraph!
I think its possibly the highly unrigorous nature of grant-making in the community, and lack of ground level feedback loops which result in more or less money being given to you.
I was going to answer "This dynamic is in place in all sorts of social circles, especially for high-conscientiousness nerdy types, so it doesn't demand any explanation for why it shows up here too."
But your answer could plausibly help explain why it's more concentrated in Bay Area EA circles, if that is in fact the case.
> This dynamic is in place in all sorts of social circles, especially for high-conscientiousness nerdy types, so it doesn't demand any explanation for why it shows up here too.
Its not uncommon, but I associate the types of feelings more with high school than any real world professional or social situations. Like, does hacker culture have this dynamic? Do academics have this dynamic? I don’t know but I’d guess no on both counts. Though more no with hackers than academics.
I think the dynamic is actually moderately weird. Not entirely OOD for humans but weird enough to deserve an explanation other than the equivalent of “human be humans man”.
A cynical interpretation: for most people, altruism is significantly motivated by status-seeking behavior. It should not be all that surprising if most effective altruists are motivated significantly by status in their altruism. So you've collected several hundred people all motivated by status into the same subculture, but status isn't a positive-sum good, so not everyone can get the amount of status they want, and we get the above dynamic: people get immense status anxiety compared to alternative cultures because in alternative situations they'd just climb to the proper status-level in their subculture, out-competing those who care less about status. But here, everyone cares about status to a large amount, so those who would have out-competed others in alternate situations are unable to and feel bad about it.
One solution given this world is to break EA up into several different sub-cultures. On a less grand, more personal, scale, you could join a subculture outside EA and status-climb to your heart's content in there.
Preferably a subculture with very few status-seekers, but with large amounts of status to give. Ideas for such subcultures?
I agree with lots of this but my takeaway headline is a bit different - not 'the inner circle of cool EAs doesn't exist' but more, this desire for status doesn't go away, no matter how far up the ladder you climb, so don't delude yourself that 'if I only go to X Cool Party I've Made It' (related twitter thread: https://twitter.com/contemplatonist/status/1647578257762443265)
Like you point out that a person's high-EA-status-y connections seem normal and boring to them... But like, there are probably some committed EAs who not only don't personally know Eliezer Yudkowsky, but also don't personally know *anyone* approaching that level of EA celebrity. I'm close to quite a few people who work for major EA orgs, or who are 1 or 2 removes from very well-known EAs, and like... I think this *does* give me some level of status/inclusion/insideriness that a person doesn't automatically get, just by virtue of being interested in EA and caring about all this. Even though as you say, that doesn't mean I or these other people are "special".
I like the overall sentiment, but the actual claims feel kinda... gaslighty? Or like they're trying to convince people to feel better without much regard for how true they are.
More concretely:
- Listing a bunch of inner circles that most readers aren't in, then saying "But no one gets to participate in all the private conversations and get invited to all the neat parties and go to all the invite-only retreats", seems... obviously not what most people are worried about here.
- In general consoling yourself with the thought that other people are insecure doesn't seem like the best strategy (e.g. "most likely, they have the same boredom and insecurity and relationship stress and loneliness that you do"). Firstly it may not be true; secondly, even if it is true, I'd expect it to be a kinda unhealthy line of thinking, cos now seeing other people happy is an attack on your defenses.
- I expect a wide range of people will read this, but that it's targeted at a much smaller range of people. E.g. mentioning being friends with Scott and Eliezer already puts you in an inner circle by most people's standards. (Also idk how this was intended, but playfully insulting your friends is generally a way of countersignalling closeness, which... is fine, just seems like a weird place for it.)
I prefer focusing on Lewis' take in his original essay, which I read as more like: no amount of status will cure status anxiety, and so if you don't focus on what matters now, then you'll never focus on what matters. (To be fair, you do touch on this at various points, although not quite phrased in a way that resonates with me.)
It was very interesting to read your opinion on this. I completely agree with you that being comforted by thoughts of other people's insecurities is not the best strategy.
I agree with everything you said, but find it kind of ironic that it's you who's saying it. I would consider you to be fairly unambiguously in the group of high status EAs.
I am reading a bit into the subtext of your comment (i.e. I assume that if you felt there was an inner circle of EAs that included you, you would have said so), so this could be wrong, but it sounds like you have some concerns about getting into or being in the inner circle. "Even Richard Ngo worries that he's not in the innermost circle" seems like a good point in favor of Ozy's argument. I wouldn't call this consoling with the thought that other people are insecure, so much as pointing out the absurdity of status anxiety by showing that it is not well-correlated with actual status.
"it sounds like you have some concerns about getting into or being in the inner circle."
Hmm, I'm curious what made you think this. Was it that I didn't talk about my experiences of inner circles? That's mostly because I think it's a bad ontology. My guess is that if you pick any group of "core EAs", the most common thing they'll feel towards that group is something like "ahhhh this group is nowhere near being able to do all the things we need to do!" (That's how I feel at least, along with a certain fondness.) And so at least on a day to day level, my experience mostly involves casting around for ways to fill those gaps, in a way which doesn't involve thinking much about (internal) status dynamics. (It helps that I'm doing pretty different things from other people - I imagine this would be more stressful if I were just doing straightforward alignment research.)
If you queried my subconscious brain, I think it would explain not thinking about those dynamics by saying something like "of course anyone who can help fill the biggest gaps will be given a bunch of status". I don't fully believe this on an intellectual level, but maybe I think of it as a baseline from which to depart. I do also sometimes think about whether broader status dynamics in the community are working well - in particular about how to reallocate status from people who throw parties to people who do external-facing community-building.
Yeah, my comment was speculative, and I hope my first reply did an appropriate job of conveying that speculativeness. I guessed that if you felt you had experience in what an inner circle, you would have said so.
Thanks for elaborating on your thought process.
One time on Twitter in 2022, I was trying to explain that EA has a big spectrum of views, sometimes conflicting, and SBF (!) made it clear I did not have authority to speak of such things, since I was not a "core EA"
https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1535739045623504896
I am a Giving What We Can Pledge relative outsider, but I have dated some "higher status EA folks", and yes, this is true. I was surprised at how socially isolated some objectively cool people were in practice. When a lot of the people you are meeting are observing you from a professional context, it is not conducive to intimacy.
❤️
I guess I like to try and reframe that there are people only I know well and whether they are powerful is less important than that we spend time together and like each others company. To me, they are the cool secret group chat.
Any theories about what causes this dynamic? Answer now before I give my answer in the next paragraph!
I think its possibly the highly unrigorous nature of grant-making in the community, and lack of ground level feedback loops which result in more or less money being given to you.
I was going to answer "This dynamic is in place in all sorts of social circles, especially for high-conscientiousness nerdy types, so it doesn't demand any explanation for why it shows up here too."
But your answer could plausibly help explain why it's more concentrated in Bay Area EA circles, if that is in fact the case.
> This dynamic is in place in all sorts of social circles, especially for high-conscientiousness nerdy types, so it doesn't demand any explanation for why it shows up here too.
Its not uncommon, but I associate the types of feelings more with high school than any real world professional or social situations. Like, does hacker culture have this dynamic? Do academics have this dynamic? I don’t know but I’d guess no on both counts. Though more no with hackers than academics.
I think the dynamic is actually moderately weird. Not entirely OOD for humans but weird enough to deserve an explanation other than the equivalent of “human be humans man”.
Probably there exist communities of artists who have this dynamic, I think I’d predict that.
A cynical interpretation: for most people, altruism is significantly motivated by status-seeking behavior. It should not be all that surprising if most effective altruists are motivated significantly by status in their altruism. So you've collected several hundred people all motivated by status into the same subculture, but status isn't a positive-sum good, so not everyone can get the amount of status they want, and we get the above dynamic: people get immense status anxiety compared to alternative cultures because in alternative situations they'd just climb to the proper status-level in their subculture, out-competing those who care less about status. But here, everyone cares about status to a large amount, so those who would have out-competed others in alternate situations are unable to and feel bad about it.
One solution given this world is to break EA up into several different sub-cultures. On a less grand, more personal, scale, you could join a subculture outside EA and status-climb to your heart's content in there.
Preferably a subculture with very few status-seekers, but with large amounts of status to give. Ideas for such subcultures?
Of course you'd say that, you're one of them. 🤷
> There is no diminishing marginal utility of saved children.
I have to point out that is not an uncontroversial assumption, but alo the argument doesn't actually depend on it as best I can tell...
"no diminishing marginal utility over the range any human actually has control over today" seems accurate?
OK, that's true, but I still don't think you need it to make the argument work. :P