I recently resigned as Columbia EA President and have stepped away from the EA community. This post aims to explain my EA experience and some reasons why I am leaving EA. I will discuss poor epistemic norms in university groups, why retreats can be manipulative, and why paying university group organizers may be harmful. Most of my views on university group dynamics are informed by my experience with Columbia EA. My knowledge of other university groups comes from conversations with other organizers from selective US universities, but I don’t claim to have a complete picture of the university group ecosystem.Disclaimer: I’ve written this piece in a more aggressive tone than I initially intended. I suppose the writing style reflects my feelings of EA disillusionment and betrayal.My EA ExperienceDuring my freshman year, I heard about a club called Columbia Effective Altruism. Rumor on the street told me it was a cult, [...]---Outline:(00:51) My EA Experience(06:18) Epistemic Problems in Undergraduate EA Communities(08:08) My Best Guess on Why AI Safety Grips Undergraduate Students(11:22) Caveats(11:44) How Retreats Can Foster an Epistemically Unhealthy Culture(12:06) Against Taking Ideas Seriously(13:16) Why Do People Take Ideas Seriously in Retreats?(15:09) Other Retreat Issues(16:16) University Group Organizer Funding(16:35) Why I Think Paying Organizers May Be Bad(17:31) Potential Solutions(18:21) Final Remarks---
First published:
August 3rd, 2023

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/euzDpFvbLqPdwCnXF/university-ea-groups-need-fixing
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