Scattered Takes and Unsolicited Advice (new ones added to the top)

By ChanaMessinger @ 2022-09-30T15:10 (+21)

• There are lots of contexts, even ones that aren't work contexts, where you might be being evaluated or assessed informally. This is kind of just true in the world in general, but if you end up making EA a big part of your social and professional networks, then the consequences of that are bigger.
• If you care about being able to do EA work longterm, it's worth pretty significant costs to avoid resenting EA. Take that into account when you think about what decisions you're making and with what kind of sacrifice.
• "Say more?" and "If your thoughts are in a pile, what's on top?" are pretty powerful conversational moves, in my experience
• You can really inspire people to do a bunch in some cheap ways (though thinking about it, I think I can think of...2-3 people I've directly affected this way?)
• A lot of our feelings and reactions come reactively / contextually / on the margins - people feel a certain way e.g. when they are immersed in EA spaces and sometimes have critiques, and when they are in non-EA spaces, they miss the good things about EA spaces. This seems normal and healthy and a good way to get multiple frames on something, but also good to keep in mind.
• People who you think of as touchstones of thinking a particular thing may change their minds or not be as bought in as you'd expect
• The world has so much detail
• One of the most valuable things more senior EAs can do for junior EAs is contextualize: EA has had these conversations before, the thing you experienced was a 20th/50th/90th percentile experience, other communities do/don't go through similar things etc.
• Maybe one of the best things we can all do for each other is push on expanding option sets, and ask questions that get us to think more about what we think and what we should do. 
• About going to hubs to network
• When you're new to EA, it's very exciting: Don't let your feet go faster than your brain - know what you're doing and why. It's not good for you or the world if in two years you look around and don't believe any of it and don't know how you got there and feel tricked or disoriented.
• You're not alone in feeling overwhelmed or like an imposter
• If you're young in EA: Don't go into community building just because the object level feels scarier and you don't have the skills yet
• Networking is great, but it's not the only form of agency / initiative taking
• Lots of ick feelings about persuasion and outreach get better if you're honest and transparent
• Lots of ick feelings about all kinds of things are tracking a lot of different things at once: people's vibes, a sense of honesty or dishonesty, motivated reasoning, underlying empirical disagreements - it's good to track those things separately
• Ask for a reasonable salary for your work, it's not as virtuous as you think to work for nothing
  • Sets bad norms for other people who can't afford to do that
  • Makes it more like volunteering so you might not take the work as seriously
• Don't be self-hating about EA; figure out what you believe and don't feel bad about believing it and its implications and acting in the world in accordance with it
• There are sides of spectra like pro-spending money or longtermism or meta work that aren't just "logic over feelings", they have feelings too.
• Earnestness is shockingly effective - if you say what you think and why you think it (including "I read the title of a youtube video"), if you say when don't know what to do and what you're confused about, if you say what you're confident in and why, if you say how you feel and why, I find things (at least in this social space) go pretty damn well, way better than I would have expected.