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As of this point in time, I'd identify as being in the EA community, but my excitement for the community itself has cooled.

• I feel like I'm making excuses for EA all the time (esp recently with the Sam Altman stuff) on things that I only halfheartedly agree with.

• I'm less proud to talk about the ideas to others, and sometimes avoid the topic out of a vague desire to avoid conflict

• I'm less drawn to EA events and people. While a lot of my favorite people in the world are EA (-ish) and I still love all of them, I don't feel like the marginal event will help me find another cool person to befriend.

A lot of these points echo my feelings on being Catholic. I'm definitely Catholic but also definitely not part of the Catholic community (though unexpectedly: I've recently gotten a bit closer due to getting married in church and then joining the choir).

Hmm I find it hard to see how the things you don’t like change in a year. I think Manifund now being a part of the EA ecosystem should probably nudge me to thinking this should resolve as yes but maybe you decide ‘I work for something that’s apart of the ecosystem but I still find it hard to identify with the community’.

Significant time spent on Manifund seems bullish.

I don’t know enough about you to bet, but I’ll say this: you should never be made to feel like you have to.

Identifying with the movement, and integrating more with it socially, comes with a lot of costs. For example it might make you (consciously or subconsciously) feel like criticizing its organization or fundamental beliefs is a “betrayal” of your friends or would ostracize you from your social group.

Effective Altruism is just as susceptible to the kind of bias and corruptive social dynamics that plague other social movements and religions. Just like Scott Alexander recently wrote about how no one’s immune to conspiracy theories, no movement is immune to corruption.

EA has some great ideas, but it does not have a monopoly on morality. Never let anyone convince you that it does. You can still Do Good without it.

This introduction describes my place w.r.t the EA community just right.

I might have described myself as EA due to having taking GWWC & donating, but functionally I knew nobody in the community.

Yep, that's me. Interested to hear how your position has evolved, @Austin

@firstuserhere oh, well, a chain of events pulled me deeper into the black hole community:

• Winning an ACX Grant

• Getting funding from LTFF and then FTX FF

• Going to EA Bahamas

• Going to EAGs

• Various parties/social circles in the bay

I think the biggest delta was EA Bahamas, for what it's worth (thanks again to @JoelBecker for running an amazing program).

Nah, there's too much overlap between Manifold and EA/EA-adjacent communities. Even if you somehow burned out and cynically gave up on the idea of altruism itself, you would still have a strong egoistic incentive to keep up the networking and keep the grants coming in.

Plus, EA is fun! I haven't played so many different board games in my life.

@cos The idea that not identifying with the EA community = giving up on the idea of altruism is an interesting one. EA doesn't have a monopoly on doing good, y'know.

As you might infer from my comments elsewhere, I don't consider the inefficient structure a negative - I think orgs within EA should be well-organized, with a proper degree of hierarchy relative to org complexity. But EA is not an organization, it's a bundle of ideas and people with affinity for those ideas, and I'm resistant to this changing; I'd like to see more of it.

I agree with you on the other three! I would especially love to see far more outreach to older, more world-wise people.

@noumena I tentatively agree with this, and would probably like to see EA be less centrally organized

@KatjaGrace I would like epic power struggles the likes that would put Imperial Chinese harems to shame

(Note: I love how manifold nukes any semblance of reputation I may have cos by allowing me to make immutable comments)