Yup - although in the case of EA, that's still likely to be a very slow process.

I don't think that's a problem. We don't need to think in terms of corporate quarter results but are free to think more long-term.

Focusing on quick fixes isn't what successful movement building is about.

The best way to recruit is to have people who are passionate enough about a subject that they tell their friends.

So you expect movement building / outreach to be a lot less successful than community building ("inreach", if you will)?

Yes, especially if the same strategies are expected to accomplish both. They're two very different tasks.

I wouldn't say the same tasks will work equally well for both. But I do think either would have spillover effects for the other. Right now, it seems we're focused on community building, though.

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I think you can convince people to give more of their money away, you can convince people to take the effectiveness of the charity into account, you can convince people to care more about animals or to stop eating meat, and possibly that there are technological risks that are greater than climate change and nuclear war. I don't think you'll convince the same person of all of these things. Rather they'll be individuals that are on board with specific parts and that may or may not identify with EA.

I'd be interested in how much overlap there are between these groups. It never was my intention to try and convince people of the entire meme set at once, but I wouldn't rule it out as implausible. I think better understanding these channels (how people come to these beliefs) is most important.

In order to recruit new EAs, your pitch will almost definitely have to downplay certain areas that many core EAs spend lots of time thinking about.

I think "core" EAs understand and are comfortable with that, so they won't feel alienated.

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As long as your goal is to increase that number [of core EAs], you're going to see very low recruitment rates.

Some of this comes down to what counts as an "EA". What kind of conversion do we need to do, and how much? I also think I'll be pretty unsuccessful at getting new core EAs, but what can I get? How hard is it? These are things I'd like to know, and things I believe would be valuable to know.

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If you want more "total altruistic effort," go convince people to show more altruistic effort.

So you expect movement building / outreach to be a lot less successful than community building ("inreach", if you will)?

There's a reason why for-profit organizations do this - it actually works.

It costs them huge advertising budgets and gets less effective as time goes by.

For-profit organization actually do this because they don't have a cause to rally around. Making more money for shareholders isn't giving anyone a feeling of community.

Steve Jobs got rid of focus groups telling him what the people want and build products to fit his own standards. As a result Apple has managed to develop a strong brand.

And if you won't agree with a worldview, you aren't going to join the community just because it's active.

But you might switch to self identifying yourself as EA because there are people on Skillshare doing nice things for you without asking for something in return.

That self identification will then improve the chances that you are doing other things to advance EA. It helps with retention.

"A stronger community for the effective altruist movement should better encourage existing EAs to contribute more and better attract new people to consider becoming EA. By building the EA Community, we hope to indirectly improve recruitment and retention in the effective altruist movement, which in turn indirectly results in more total altruistic effort, in turn resulting in more reduced suffering and increased happiness."

I'm going to predict that .impact struggles to meet this objective.

I think you're taking a naive view of how movement building works.

I think you need to see the distinction between retaining and recruiting members as analogous to the tension between a core and casual fan base. In order to recruit new EAs, your pitch will almost definitely have to downplay certain areas that many core EAs spend lots of time thinking about. That way, you'll bring in a lot of new people that, for example, buy the argument that you should donate to the charity that provides the most bang for your buck and yet still, for example, have zero interest in AI or animals. If you refuse to alienate core EA member values in order to get more casual EAs (e.g. people that donate to GiveWell's top charities and give a bit more than average) then, well, that's admirable, I guess, but you're movement building won't go anywhere. There's a reason why for-profit organizations do this - it actually works.

The amount of people that share most EA values is going to remain low for a very long time. Increasing that number wouldn't involve "recruitment" as much as it would involve full-on conversion. As long as your goal is to increase that number, you're going to see very low recruitment rates. Most people aren't on the market shopping for new worldviews - but individual new beliefs or values, maybe. And if you won't agree with a worldview, you aren't going to join the community just because it's active.

If you want more "total altruistic effort," go convince people to show more altruistic effort. Trying to movement build a group as complex and alienating as EA by strengthening its internal ties will dissuade most outsiders from wanting to join you. Pre-existing communities can be scary things to self-identify with.

You know how some parents make their kids try cigarettes at a young age so that they'll hate it and then not want to smoke when they're older? Well, a website like Brian Tomasik's is like that for most potential EAs. Way too much, too soon.

Cool. Will there be a lot of overlap with Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking? Based on your description, it sounds like Dennett just wrote this book for you.

Not just magical thinkers. I heard Massimo Pigliucci making the same "this isn't definitive and therefore it tells us nothing" argument on the most recent Rationally Speaking podcast.

The good news is that our higher cognitive abilities also allow us to overcome depression in many situations. In Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert explains how useful it is that we can rationalize away bad events in our lives (such as rejection). This capability, which Gilbert refers to as our psychological immune system, explains why people are able to bounce back from negative events much more quickly than they expect to.

They basically stopped short of calling the scientific method a cultural construct

I had this problem recently too, and my solution was to not mention "science" in and of itself, but mention heuristics based on probability. It's much harder to argue that math is a social construct. If you can explain how biases fail using probability theory it might go over a lot better.