I used to be a conservative Evangelical Christian (cEC) (Christians who try to take the Bible as literally as possible and then tell others about it) and while I have fairly little positive to say about Christianity these days, my cEC friends were great at community. I think there are some questions then about how we can maximise our wellbeing and convince others to share our ideology.
Community
- Seeing a core group of people often allows you to follow their lives
- Group singing/ eating is really fun - are there any studies on this?
- Support around illness, births, marriages, deaths is great - my friends all used to make meals for each other at these times. Not having to worry about food at a stressful time is a big plus
- Knowing people of different generations helps loneliness, particularly in the old and young
- With lots of caveats, holding people to a known external standard stops poor behaviour
- Forgiveness is great. Particularly in circumstances where someone doesn't admit they are wrong. Many of the words I use here are just descriptors - forgiveness isn't any mystical transaction, it's deciding not to pursue vengeance, acknowledging your feelings and resolving not to dwell on them
- Learning to deal with weird/awkward/intense people. Perhaps I doth protest too much
- Financial support
- Having understood regular community events and social time
Spreading Ideologies - Weddings
Weddings are an appropriate place for (appropriate) discussion of ideology. I've been to ~20 weddings (though only 2 non-Christian) and weddings can be a great place for revealing what you believe and how you live. I wasn't an agnostic atheist at the time so it's only a guess that I'll still feel that, but I have some musings:
- Does marriage increase wellbeing?
- Should EAs live in long term committed relationships? Should they make promises to one another? Should they have wedding services. Certainly, people are still having weddings, though do you find them to be ideologically deep/ beautiful and clear in their imagery? (cough white wedding dress, walking down the aisle, father of the bride giving her away, cough)
- Is there any good EA wedding liturgy? Liturgy ("We are gathered here today...") is, if written well is a great way to be clear about what you believe and say it in a beautiful, poetic way. I make no defence of some concepts in the wedding service, but it's a great service.
- Are there suggestions for ways a wedding could convey EA concepts through form? Effectively I mean good memes - things that people will say "I'd like that in my wedding" which will convey good practise. I can think of a couple of these:
- Having someone give a talk on how to live well as a couple, the beauty of existence and the need to reduce suffering. I don't know what noncs (non-Christians :p) think of wedding talks but when given by a good speaker, I think they are great.
- Honouring the time of those involved - not asking people to give loads of time for minimal improvements. Weddings contain far too much of this IMO.
- Asking people to give to EA charities rather than a wedding list?
Spreading Ideologies - Discussion
I have discussed my ideologies a lot with people over the years. Some things I have learned are:
- An ideology may be the most important thing, but it also may not be the most important thing now. Be kind, find the right moment, stop if people aren't interested.
- When you ask a good question, leave it rather than answering it. They are more likely to think about it that way.
- Search for your own incoherence. It's an easier way to work out if you are wrong. A harder way is doing research on the evidence base.
- You build models of everything. Test them to see if they are right. The person with whom you are discussing likely doesn't think what you think they do
- If you are unable to convince someone in repeated discussions and you can't see where they are being irrational, it's worth seriously considering if you are wrong
- People are much more likely to listen if they feel safe/ listened to. Also you will be kind which is really underrated. Also if you are unpleasant your good arguments are easier to dismiss
- There are many different types of communication, sometimes it's better to just listen or to empathise rather than discuss rigorously
- Some insecurity is good - it makes you question your beliefs. Don't be so insecure as to need to have the last word
- Learn which comments or arguments are worth chasing and which are worth letting go
- It's okay to stop discussing, to say you don't want to or to only want to have a certain type of discussion ("I'm happy to talk about feelings, but I don't want a deep discussion about this")
Spreading Ideologies - Other
A strong community is a great place to invite others to, and through conversation they can be involved in important ideological discussion. It's good if these events are not just a weekly meetup, but more neutral events. This is openly evangelical, but I am evangelical, I'm just not a Christian.
Questions
- How does we live in the manner which is best for our well being? I suggest community has something to do with that.
- How do we create and run transparent, rational, ideologically-self-correcting, empathetic, wellbeing-increasing, fun , life-long communities?
- How do we commit community without damaging our wellbeing or altruistic prospects?
- Is there a way to have children without massively decreasing the good you can do in the world?
- How do we do this without making all the mistakes of religion? While I am open to the challenge that I seek to create what I have left behind, but I think there are benefits to what I have suggested here. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. (A backwards clock is right 4 times... wait, what?)
Conclusion
I suggest there is a place for building and maintaining community for the wellbeing. I don't know how much of our time this is worth, but it's something I'm interested in. If there is an appetite for a more in depth piece, I'd be happy to write one. I am little vulnerable in talking about this, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
Thank you for opening this discussion - this feels like a really important topic. I've never been religious, and my parents moved around a lot when I was young. So I didn't have the experience of growing up in a community, but it has always seemed really appealing to me. One thing I've been particularly glad about being surrounded by EAs is that it's so accepted that living in group houses is a good idea. My parents generation, and even my non-EA friends, tend to feel that it's weird to live with other adults, particularly when you're married. But I've found living with friends to be immensely supportive and an easier way than usual to forge strong, lasting friendships. At the extreme of this, when I had a late term still birth my housemates cleared all evidence of baby away before I came home from hospital, made sure that all the friends I wanted to be told knew without me having to talk about it, bought groceries and cooked for me. This kind of community seems immensely valuable, quite apart from it being cheaper to share houses!
If you haven't come across it yet, you might be interested to go to Secular Solstice gatherings (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ERboWueanAyqwKbiQ/boston-solstice-2018). They talk about challenges humanity has overcome and ones we still need to face, and sing songs like these (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ERboWueanAyqwKbiQ/boston-solstice-2018). Unfortunately they're just once a year though!
Yeah I wonder if there is any home-finding app in the EA community. I'd love to live with some people with similar views. (I am equally wary of going from one strict ideology to another but there we are)
There are Facebook groups for EA houses in specific cities, though I'm not aware of any that cover wider areas. Is there a specific place you'd want to know about?
There's been a good deal of recent, related discussion over on LW with a different framing which is likely relevant to this.
Yudkowsky once officiated at a wedding. I find it quite beautiful.
Every question you asked in this post has been discussed... somewhere. Tracking down all the conversation is difficult, and there are few true "experts" on this material, but existing EA communities have been slowly shaped by it into their current forms (though of course, there are always new people and new groups and old lessons that must be learned anew).
Some examples:
I don't know that a very broad discussion of "community" will be very helpful, but suggestions for specific improvements and solutions to specific problems often lead to concrete progress and mass adoption of new ideas. Are there any specific issues you think are especially important to address?
Also, in discussions like this, it helps to have a fair amount of experience living, working, or at least regularly interacting with one or more EA communities (physically or online). Are there any local EA communities you've spent time in, Nathan?
Regarding there being answers. That's good to know, I guess I will search for them - also I've just found less wrong - which is useful.
I'll check out those links.
You might be right about a broad discussion. If it turns out that issues haven't been covered I might come back and write a more specific piece.
I have not spent any time in local EA communities. I'd like to though, but that will involve working out where I'm going to live next.
Thanks for your time.
These answers aren't necessarily correct, or complete, but they represent time and energy and experience being put into attempting to figure out community, which is definitely valuable. I hope to hear more of your thoughts in the future -- the more people contributing to our collective pool of knowledge, the better!
A comment on a recent article I posted to the EA Forum of neglected goals for local EA groups was that one thing I and others don't emphasize enough is that local EA communities give people a connection to EA as a community, which keeps them invested and engaged with EA, as opposed to communities serving merely directly utilitarian purposes. I agree, so I am glad you raise this similar point.
I am sure there are studies on this you could find on Google Scholar or some other search engine for research publications, though I have no idea what the best way to go about identifying the most relevant research on these subjects. In addition to Michelle's sources, the rationality and effective altruism communities in Berkeley, California have engaged these kinds of rituals for a while now. So, you may be able to learn more about how that has gone for community-building if you run across some. Raemon might be the best person on the EA Forum to ask about this.
Different local EA communities around the world widely vary in how big or close-knit they are, so how there isn't a standard way in the EA communities to address these issues. However, there is a confidential Facebook group called EA Peer Support for virtual support from the EA communities for these kinds of personal times. Anyone can contact Julia Wise to be added to the group if they have a Facebook account.
The few people of an older generation I've known who have participated in EA appear to have mostly enjoyed and benefited from it. Since EA historically has been a movement that has such a high concentration of younger people, if it's difficult to say if or how EA will diversify along generational lines in the future.
I know some folks in the Berkeley rationality and effective altruism communities have stuff for wedding services that contain EA-like themes or messages. If you ask Raemon, he should be able to point you in the direction of some of that stuff as well.
Hi!
You write "I don't know how much of our time this is worth", but to me it seems clear that this is worth a *lot* of our time.
I have a model of human motivation. One aspect of my model is that it is very hard for most people (myself very included) to remain motivated to do something that does not get them any social rewards from the people around them.
Others on this forum have written about "values drift" (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eRo5A7scsxdArxMCt/concrete-ways-to-reduce-risks-of-value-drift) and the role community plays in it.
As soon as you said "do community", I thought, "Ahh, there's the exvangelical!"
It's fair to remove comments one no longer supports but if someone did say this, I'd agree. :P I guess it stands out a mile away.
Regarding EA weddings, check out the forum thread Suggestions for EA Weddings Vows? from just a couple of months ago.
Thanks for this post! You might be interested in the podcast Humanise Me, which is primarily focused around this idea of learning lessons from organised religion about how to build better secular communities. It's not exactly information-dense, but I think there's some good nuggets in there. I started listening to it a few years ago when I first became a local EA group organiser.