Whereas once EA was the place for smart people to talk, now many former leaders are distancing themselves from the brand
Brain drain into AI safety, specifically
EA Forum no longer feels like a good place to talk about things; average comment or post quality is lower than LessWrong; EAGs no longer feel like the best place to meet people
Loss of cohesion — AI safety vs animal welfare vs GHD vs earning to give are pretty different in terms of the kind of person who works in that
Also: vibes-wise, Bay Area EA feels pretty different than London EA, and imo it’s a problem that much of the community stuff is governed by London EA (80k, CEA)
Retention — if you’re earning to give or just EA-adjacent, there’s not much keeping you engaged
Insularity — Constellation is great, but has some ivory-tower-ness to it: hard for people to come in, hard for ideas to flow out
Interesting things to try
Copying social technology of how religious groups retain members:
Small groups: sets of 5-10 people who come together weekly and share a meal and talk about EA-y things
different than a “meetup” in how close the members are — I vividly remember my college Christian small group leader going out of his way to deliver groceries to our house
explicitly not trying to grow beyond a certain size
Volunteering, service: once upon a time, the meme was “earn to give”; then “direct work”; but something is lost when people don’t put in their own labor into making a thing better
volunteering at events like EAG is good, but not regular/consistent
Proselytizing! Why is this considered just a university thing?
Mass service: regular meeting point for the local congregation
What would EA solstice look like?
Stronger leadership
I think it’d be fun to elect a “President of EA” to be the face of the movement
More clear boundaries on whether someone is in/out
EA membership cards, renewing yearly
Better communication/organization among members
A single Slack that every EA is on
Generator question: what are technologies that are used within large (1k-10k ppl) orgs? Could we adopt those within EA?
Things that EA does uniquely well, compared to other movements
Collections of group houses and hubs, having physical places to congregate
Great writers, serving as top-of-funnel for EA ideas and philosophy