Here is my brain dump: I have mostly given up on the Berkeley rationality community as a possible village. I think the people who showed up here were mostly selected for being bad at villaging, and that the awful shit that’s been happening around here lately is downstream of that. I think there is something toxic / dysfunctional woven deep into the community fabric (which has something to do with the ways in which the Mission interacts poorly with people’s psychologies) and I don’t feel very hopeful about even being able to show it clearly to half of the community, let alone doing anything about it.
In February I wrote a 20-page Google Doc describing what I think is wrong with Berkeley in more detail, which I’ve shared with some of you but don’t plan to make public. (Message me on Facebook if you’d like to request access to a PDF of it; I might not say yes, though.) I’d like to get around to writing a second public draft but again, I’ve been feeling less hopeful, so… we’ll see.
I’ve been getting a fair number of requests on Facebook for the doc (esp. from community organizers, which I appreciate), and response has been pretty positive. That plus a few other things have me more inclined to write a public draft, but still a little wary of making promises yet.
I don’t have Facebook but as someone considering deeper participation in the rationalist community, I would greatly appreciate whatever information you have, no matter how messy or disorganized.
(I have thoughts on this, but probably makes sense to wait to comment here about it until it’s at a point where a more fully public conversation is possible. My short take is ‘I roughly agree that the dynamics Qiaochu is pointing at are real/important, but I don’t think they apply universally – they feel less relevant to me personally, and I think there’s something like competing access needs going on.’)
Here is my brain dump: I have mostly given up on the Berkeley rationality community as a possible village. I think the people who showed up here were mostly selected for being bad at villaging, and that the awful shit that’s been happening around here lately is downstream of that. I think there is something toxic / dysfunctional woven deep into the community fabric (which has something to do with the ways in which the Mission interacts poorly with people’s psychologies) and I don’t feel very hopeful about even being able to show it clearly to half of the community, let alone doing anything about it.
In February I wrote a 20-page Google Doc describing what I think is wrong with Berkeley in more detail, which I’ve shared with some of you but don’t plan to make public. (Message me on Facebook if you’d like to request access to a PDF of it; I might not say yes, though.) I’d like to get around to writing a second public draft but again, I’ve been feeling less hopeful, so… we’ll see.
I’ve been getting a fair number of requests on Facebook for the doc (esp. from community organizers, which I appreciate), and response has been pretty positive. That plus a few other things have me more inclined to write a public draft, but still a little wary of making promises yet.
I don’t have Facebook but as someone considering deeper participation in the rationalist community, I would greatly appreciate whatever information you have, no matter how messy or disorganized.
(I have thoughts on this, but probably makes sense to wait to comment here about it until it’s at a point where a more fully public conversation is possible. My short take is ‘I roughly agree that the dynamics Qiaochu is pointing at are real/important, but I don’t think they apply universally – they feel less relevant to me personally, and I think there’s something like competing access needs going on.’)
I’m interested as well. as someone trying to grow the Denver rationality community, I want to be aware of failure modes.
Interested.