I went to EAG London this weekend. I had some interesting chats, wrote some cryptic squiggles in my notebook (“Clockify” “the Easterlin paradox”, “functionalist eudaimonic theories”), and gave and received some hopefully-useful advice. Overall, the conference was fun and worthwhile for me. But at times, I also found the conference emotionally difficult.

I think this is pretty common. After last year’s EAG, Alastair Fraser-Urquhart wrote about how he burnt out at the conference and had to miss a retreat starting the next day. The post was popular, and many said they’d had similar experiences.

The standard euphemism for this facet of EA conferences is ‘intense’ or ‘tiring’, but I suspect these adjectives are often a more socially-acceptable way of saying ‘I feel low/anxious/exhausted and want to curl up in a foetal position in a darkened room’.

I want to write this post to: balance out the ‘woo EAG lfg!’ hype, and help people who found it a bad or ambivalent experience to feel less alonedig into to why EAGs can be difficult: this might help attendees have better experiences themselves, and also create an environment where others are more likely to have good experienceshelp people who mostly enjoy EAGs understand what their more neurotic or introverted friends are going through.
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mHk9h3RxvuGmTThaS/if-you-find-ea-conferences-emotionally-difficult-you-re-not
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