Don’t update too much from EA community involvement

Catherine Low🔸

Summary

While many people and organisations in the EA community can be great connections, don't assume that just because a person has been in the EA community for a long time, they'll be a good fit for you to work with or be friends with.

Don’t assume that just because a project or org has been around for a long time, it would be a good place for you to work. It may be a great opportunity, but it might not. Do some of the usual things you would do to check that this is a good interaction for you (e.g. talk to people who know or have worked with them before starting a collaboration, take time to get to know someone before placing large amounts of trust on them, and pay attention to any signals that this interaction might not be a good for you).

This advice is coming from my time on CEA’s Community Health team, being an advisor to EA Funds, and just from being around the EA in community building roles for several years.

From my experience, most people and organisations in the EA community are fantastic, and in my view, are better to interact with than the average of other communities I've been part of. However, positive experiences with a community can sometimes lead us to skip steps we would otherwise take when considering working with a person or organization, or just interacting in a more personal way.

Choosing to work with another person

A mistake I sometimes see is putting too much weight on how long someone's been in the EA community. Being around for a while often means someone is dedicated and impact-focused, and has been so for a long time, but it's not the whole story. Some people hop from one EA project to another, building apparent credibility without necessarily doing great work. Some might enjoy being part of EA for social reasons, but may not have invested much of their resources into having an impact.

When deciding who to collaborate with, consider various signals:

Have conversations with them
Check out their past work if it is available (e.g. if the work output is written), and their LinkedIn and CV
Contact their references
Reach out to people they’ve collaborated with in the past
Consider interacting with them in a group at a conference

In particular, don't just accept references at face value—I recommend contacting them, and consider reaching out to other past and present collaborators. I've found cases where listed references weren't particularly enthusiastic about working with a person, and where listed collaborators haven’t done much work with the person and weren’t aware they were listed as collaborators. This doesn’t happen often, but it is worth checking, particularly if your decision is influenced by the person’s listed connections or past work.

There's obviously a practical limit to how much checking you can do, but I encourage you to notice if you’re more positive about someone because they’re part of the EA community (or less positive if they’re not), and think about whether that impression is based on good evidence or not.

Conference attendance

The admissions team reviews applications for EAG/EAGx, but they only have a limited amount of time to assess the hundreds or thousands of applications, so there is only so much vetting they can do. If CEA is aware of serious misconduct or a pattern of concerns and we're in a position to do so, we may restrict someone from attending an EAG or EAGx conference, at least for a time. But some concerns we won’t be aware of, especially for first-time attendees.

Working with organisations

A group that did brilliant work in the past might be struggling now and the work quality might have dropped. Teams might be doing great work but have a difficult culture. Organisations change their strategies, leadership and internal dynamics over time. Consider looking at their recent work and reaching out to their current or recent past team members. See also things to check about a job or internship.

Personal Interactions with Community Members

Similar advice applies for personal interactions you might have with community members, e.g., becoming friends with somebody, couchsurfing at their home, or doing a personal favour for them.

I love that our community is generally very friendly to each other. I've particularly appreciated it twice when I've moved cities and been lucky to be welcomed into the local EA communities. I've hosted EAs at my house who I didn’t know well, I have stayed on the couches or spare rooms of other EAs, and that went well for me. But that's not a universal experience. Whatever you normally do when you meet new people should still apply to meeting new community members, at least to some extent. Listen to any signals or gut feelings that this is not a good connection for you.

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John SalterMay 2361

Strongly upvoted. Catherine is likely constrained in what she can say due to her role, in part, as a mediator between EAs.

Here's a few blunter points I'd add / make explicit:

EAs / EA orgs that do shockingly poor work sometimes wind up with informal, sometimes unspoken, mutual non-dispargement agreements with their victims. It's rarely ever worth the effort of giving someone a terrible reference because they might retaliate. You need to drag it out of them and listen hard for hints. Promise confidentiality. Don't settle for a short written reference from some HR person. Try get on a call with someone who worked closely with them.
Do not assume that because a mental health professional advertising EA-alignment means that they'll be making scientifically sound suggestions. Seek independent reviews. Look at the scientific literature for their approach (if there isn't much, that's a bad sign).
The amount of negative information that reaches you about an organisation / person is not just about their competence / character. It's equally as determined by the cause area and the culture there...
Different cause areas attract different personality profiles. This leads to very different dynamics in reputation and social information flow. Animal advocacy disproportionately attracts people the empathetic, brave, justice-seeking. The adversial nature of it selectively repels people who're conflict averse. They're thus much more likely to call people out and go to war with each other. Mental health attracts warmer more understanding people whose prime motivation is making people happy. So, you might be more likely to hear negative things about animal advocacy orgs than mental health ones, but you shouldn't assume that we're better to work with necessarily. It could equally be that our peers are less keen to call us out on our bullshit.
Influential people are much less likely to be called out because they're perceived to be in a better position to retaliate. People who do more stuff are more likely to be called out because they're involved with more people and will fail more often.

I've got a ton of deadlines coming up, so sadly can't reply to comments

Neel NandaMay 2425

Agreed with all of the above. I'll also add that a bunch of orgs do work that is basically useless, and it should not be assumed that just because an org seems "part of the community" that working there will be an effective way to do good - public callouts are costly, and community dynamics and knowledge can be hard to judge from the outside.

Richard Y Chappell🔸May 2616

I wonder whether CEA or someone could fruitfully run (and share the results of) an anonymous survey of some suitably knowledgeable and diverse group of EA insiders, regarding their confidence in various "EA adjacent" orgs?

aleneJun 52

This is a REALLY good point. Thank you for posting this. I come from the animal rights movement. We have a similar problem in that movement. People in the AR movement tend to feel isolated, because they care so much about animals and perhaps they feel that the rest of the world, their family, and their society doesn't get it. So they are so eager to meet and befriend another AR person. It's really fun to make friends so easily! I love how quick other AR people are to trust me when they find out I'm an animal advocate. But there's also a downside to the trust in AR, similar to what you're describing. People can be too trusting when they're part of an ethical movement like AR or EA. And it can let others take advantage of them. I even imagine that people who want to take advantage of others might intentionally be motivated to join ethical communities like EA, AR, charity work, religious work, political activism, etc., so they can be accepted more easily with fewer questions. (Not sure—Just a hypothethis.) Thank you for writing this!