The thing about making EA more welcoming though is that it seems hard to determine what discourse norms will actually get you more people on net.
I mean, I’m an EA because I think the philosophical arguments are correct. But I never would have even listened to the arguments if I hadn’t been drawn in by the community first. And what drew me in about the community?
- full of programmers and philosophers
- willing to argue about the methodology of studies or the details of population ethics at very little provocation
- conversations about the Silmarillion (which I haven’t even read but still)
- capable of discussing the pros and cons of murdering babies in a calm and rational manner
- ridiculous thought experiments and in-group jargon
- the kind of place where you can refer to the thin line between feminism and literally Voldemort and no one will storm out of the room
Like high-variance strategies are a thing, “make EA as non-weird as possible” seems unlikely to actually be the best way to do recruitment.
so… yes, high-variance strategies are a thing, but they make more sense in the context of dating, where you only want a limited number of partners and so only attracting the best one(s) is a good idea
but EA is something that could benefit from having as many people as possible contributing to it over time! so it’s different. although we still likely want to do some amount of selection for people whose beliefs are at all compatible with EA.
but for example, I think a lot of Christians who take charity really seriously could potentially be really into EA, except… well, this community likely isn’t as welcoming to that type of person (as far as I know, which is of course not very much, since I’m an atheist and don’t really know any religious people).
Yeah, I agree our strategy should be less high-variance here than in dating. And I’m on board with getting as many people into EA as possible. And I support the suggestions that are like “be friendly to people” and “listen to people about their experiences rather than just trying to convert them.”
I just think
- if people criticize the way EAs talk to other EAs because they’re afraid it will turn people off it will make the movement a less fun place to be
- there’s a possible future where we try to appeal to both devout Christian art history majors and utilitarian programmers and end up being bland enough that we appeal to neither