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Principles of inclusion & exclusion

Designing who comes event, gathering, website, grants program, company

The most important component of an event, party, company is “who is there”?

  • How is gatekeeping done?
    • Clusters around a particular topic
      • Prediction markets for Manifold; rationality for ACX
    • Be careful where you advertise! E.g. animal advocacy
      • Public grant programs on the internet get some chaff
    • Reviewing applications
      • Standard, but also kind of unfun for everyone involved
    • Reverse: reach out to people who you actively want
      • How we did Manifest
  • Open meetups:
    • Taco Tuesday
      • Nice to be truly open & inclusive, serves some purposes well (really helps people on the margins)
    • Scott Alexander on “come even if you’re not the typical ACX reader” <3

Events

  • Should a conference like EAG be open?
  • Scale of events from small to large: hangout to party to wedding
  • Art of Gathering famously tells you to exclude people…
  • Adverse selection

Websites

  • Websites are default open?
    • Interesting exception: Alignment forum, can read but can’t write

Funding, grants

  • YC is open for anyone to apply to, vs VC which is very network-based. Why do accelerators take applications while VCs do not?

Companies

  • Manifold hiring
  • Traditionally: hire slowly fire quickly. Companies are very exclusive.
    • What would a radically inclusive company look like?
      • Anyone can pitch in as a volunteer, rise up as their contributions get better, eventually start getting paid? cf Gavriel at 1DaySooner
      • Open source ecosystem? Crypto ecosystem?

Countries

  • Immigration, obv

Movements

  • EA
    • The movement I’m most familiar with. Different sides: university & meetup groups try a bit to be big tent, but otoh trying for EA jobs can seem very exclusive/competitive
  • Catholic
    • “All are welcome”