I think funding REACH before there was a track record would’ve been financially risky. I chose to take that risk personally because I didn’t see how it would happen without someone doing something risky. It certainly would have been nice to have gotten support from CEA right away, but I don’t think they were wrong to choose to focus resources on people who’d been working on community building for longer, and likely had fewer resources to spare.
stardust
Karma: 415
CEA turned down my proposal because there were other, more established groups than REACH with clearer track records of success and better thought out metrics for success/failure applying for the same round of grants. I am working on building up a track record and metrics/data capture so that I can reapply later.
I’m working on building up a similar reproducible set of operating guidelines for REACH and would be very interested in comparing notes.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an event with more people interested than able to attend in Berkeley. If anything, it’s difficult to get people to come out for events.
A couple friends of mine who were early attendees of a CFAR workshop lived in the Bay Area for several months in 2013, and returned home with stories of how wondrous the Bay Area was. They convinced several of us to attend CFAR workshops as well, and we too returned home with the sense of wonderment after our brief immersion in the Berkeley rationality community. But when my friends and I each returned, somehow our ambition transformed into depression. I tried rallying my friends to try carrying back or reigniting the spark that made the Berkeley rationalist community thrive, to really spread the rationalist project beyond the Bay Area.
You seem to be conflating “CFAR workshop atmosphere” with “Berkeley Rationalist Community” in this section, which makes me wonder if you are conflating those things more generally.
The depressive slump post-CFAR happens *in Berkeley* too. The thriving community you envision Berkeley as having *does not exist,* except at CFAR workshops. The problem you’re identifying isn’t a Bay-Area-vs-the-world issue, it’s a general issue with the way CFAR operates, building up intense social connections over the course of a weekend, then dropping them suddenly.
Perhaps? I am not sure if if there is even a coherent top-tier. If there is I am not part of or aware of it.