“Two modalities of meta-EA. Are you recruiting for roles at orgs or are you building a community? Per my sports idea above, I think the community building (for its own sake) is neglected.”

Yes. Nicely put. 

Also, if someone from the forum team reads this, I can’t figure out how to format my quote as a quote whilst using safari on iOS.

You can donate directly to EA Netherlands here ;)

I really like the look and feel of the new website!

Thanks for developing and delivering these workshops with us Shoshannah! 

Great stuff, forwarded this directly to our marketing team, thanks for sharing! 

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

I agree with your general point, i.e., we shouldn't forget that EA meta work is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. I'm also very suspicious of most 'X but for EAs' initiatives. 

However, I also think it's useful to have proximate objectives, and 'entertain EAs' is probably a good proximate objective for someone doing your work (if I've understood your role correctly^[1]). Similarly, I think 'build a community for Dutch EAs' is a good proximate objective for us at EA Netherlands.

My general vibes-based take is that most people doing analogous work in the social impact space over-prioritise these proximate objectives, but most people in the meta EA space currently under-prioritise them. 

The failure mode we want to avoid isn't 'EAs are entertained/find community through my work'. Instead, it's either 'EAs are entertained/find community through my work but it doesn't improve their thinking or coordination' OR 'EAs are not entertained/finding community through my work and therefore it doesn't improve their thinking or coordination'. 

(To be clear: I don't think we should spend more resources on inward-facing work - in fact I think we should reallocate towards outward-facing work. I just think those doing inward-facing work should put more weight on proximate objectives.)

1. ^{^}

   Faciliate the creation of EA-related content → EAs engage with it → this improves their thinking/coordination/decisions → better impact 

Just to throw in some grist, I actually think it would be good if you thought of your work as producing entertainment for EAs (honestly, before I clicked through I thought that's what this post was going to be about). It's a nice catch-phrase.

No worries! 

Yes, in per capita terms we do pretty well :) But so do Norway, Switzerland, and Estonia. 

I'd suggest having a few 1-1s with people who have been in a similar situation to yourself (or people who can provide an overview of different relevant communities).

@guneyulasturker 🔸 came to Amsterdam from Turkey to do an exchange here (and eventually interned with us) because he thought it'd be a good place to connect with EAs in Europe. I think he was a little disappointed at first - it's not like there's something happening every night of the week - so he can give you a nuanced view. 

Perhaps you could also talk to @mariuswenk? He was interning with EA Switzerland and then chose to spend a few weeks interning with us to see how things vary from place to place. 

Good luck making the decision, and we look forward to welcoming you at EAGxAmsterdam!