A (Semi) conscious policy, in which Berkeley is kinda trying to keep their numbers down or their average person quality up. There is something to say for this policy, though I would prefer that Berkeley people are honest about it
I hadn’t thought about it being perceived this way. As perhaps with many communities, it sometimes happens that there are more people than can be accomodated in an event or who can fit within the active social network of a person (cf. Dunbar number). As a result if you are running an event or just trying to keep tabs on your friends (your tribe) you only have room for so many and have to make a cut somewhere (not necessarily consciously but somewhere people will fade out of your perview). This unfortunately means it’s not as easy to “get in” with the Berkeley crowd because many events and people are already at their limits so a new person coming in requires an existing person going out.
Now there’s plenty of natural churn—people move, interests change, etc.—and this offers opportunities for new people to come in without displacing anyone, but at the margins there is definitely going to be some competition to stay in the tribe. Like, if you’re the 100th person I think of you’re at more risk of not getting an invite than if you are the 10th person I think of, and being 100th you are at more risk of being forgotten because I recently met someone new or just haven’t talked to you in a while. And if you find yourself feeling you are on the edges of the tribe it can be distressing to have to work to stay close enough to the fire to remain warm.
Anyway this is all to say that the Berkeley rationalists are of such a size that they naturally exhibit behavior patterns matching those of a human tribe. I don’t know if I would call this a “policy” though, and certainly many rationalists, being humans, are unaware they are engaged in these social dynamics such that they might say hypocritical things to signal status, membership, etc..
Perhaps the good news is that there’s a natural counterbalance to this that I already see happening: tribal split. That is, we’re big enough in Berkeley and the Bay Area that I feel like we’re developing at least 2 if not 3 tribes. The details are still fuzzy because we’re not quite big enough to force a solid split and I expect there to always be plenty of cross-over because we are all part of the same clan (I realize now I have my use of tribe and clan reversed...), but this is naturally what will happen if we grow as a community.
Like with other small, tight-nit groups, rationalists will be welcome anywhere rationalists congregate, but only so many folks can be members of a particular congregation at the same time.
“I feel like we’re developing at least 2 if not 3 tribes”—how do you see this happening? And are you talking about a LW/EA divide or a location divide, ect.
Hmm, I’m not quite sure what the attractors are. It’s not purely location, although there is probably a correction between distance from the Bailey on Ward street and feeling like you’re with the in crowd. EA is correlated with which people you are likely to spend time with, but that’s not quite it either. There’s also maybe some amount of self-selection around social norms between what we might call nerds (people observing nonstandard social norms or just not observing social norms) and normies (people observing sufficiently standard social norms that they can and do have non-nerd, non-rationalist friends). But there’s nothing so strong on its own that we’ve got clear divisions yet, just some early clustering around things like EA/non-EA and nerd/normie.
I hadn’t thought about it being perceived this way. As perhaps with many communities, it sometimes happens that there are more people than can be accomodated in an event or who can fit within the active social network of a person (cf. Dunbar number). As a result if you are running an event or just trying to keep tabs on your friends (your tribe) you only have room for so many and have to make a cut somewhere (not necessarily consciously but somewhere people will fade out of your perview). This unfortunately means it’s not as easy to “get in” with the Berkeley crowd because many events and people are already at their limits so a new person coming in requires an existing person going out.
Now there’s plenty of natural churn—people move, interests change, etc.—and this offers opportunities for new people to come in without displacing anyone, but at the margins there is definitely going to be some competition to stay in the tribe. Like, if you’re the 100th person I think of you’re at more risk of not getting an invite than if you are the 10th person I think of, and being 100th you are at more risk of being forgotten because I recently met someone new or just haven’t talked to you in a while. And if you find yourself feeling you are on the edges of the tribe it can be distressing to have to work to stay close enough to the fire to remain warm.
Anyway this is all to say that the Berkeley rationalists are of such a size that they naturally exhibit behavior patterns matching those of a human tribe. I don’t know if I would call this a “policy” though, and certainly many rationalists, being humans, are unaware they are engaged in these social dynamics such that they might say hypocritical things to signal status, membership, etc..
Perhaps the good news is that there’s a natural counterbalance to this that I already see happening: tribal split. That is, we’re big enough in Berkeley and the Bay Area that I feel like we’re developing at least 2 if not 3 tribes. The details are still fuzzy because we’re not quite big enough to force a solid split and I expect there to always be plenty of cross-over because we are all part of the same clan (I realize now I have my use of tribe and clan reversed...), but this is naturally what will happen if we grow as a community.
Like with other small, tight-nit groups, rationalists will be welcome anywhere rationalists congregate, but only so many folks can be members of a particular congregation at the same time.
“I feel like we’re developing at least 2 if not 3 tribes”—how do you see this happening? And are you talking about a LW/EA divide or a location divide, ect.
Hmm, I’m not quite sure what the attractors are. It’s not purely location, although there is probably a correction between distance from the Bailey on Ward street and feeling like you’re with the in crowd. EA is correlated with which people you are likely to spend time with, but that’s not quite it either. There’s also maybe some amount of self-selection around social norms between what we might call nerds (people observing nonstandard social norms or just not observing social norms) and normies (people observing sufficiently standard social norms that they can and do have non-nerd, non-rationalist friends). But there’s nothing so strong on its own that we’ve got clear divisions yet, just some early clustering around things like EA/non-EA and nerd/normie.
What’s your guess for the ratios involved? (of EA/non-EA and nerd/normie)