Rachel

Events @ Stripe Press / Works in Progress
51 karmaJoined Jan 2022Working (6-15 years)

Participation
1

  • Attended an EA Global conference

Comments
6

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The incentive to make other connections is already there: you can tell it would make you happier. It's a question of coming up with a good plan and then executing it. 

Some possible ways to make connections in your city: 

  • No EA events for the next six months. If you'll miss your EA friends, tell them you're interested in making friends outside the EA community, and that you'd like to hang out but you'd rather go to a bar or for a hike or something than to an EA meetup, and that they're welcome to invite anyone who would enjoy whatever the activity is.
  • Start doing activities which are good for making connections: start playing football or another social sport; do some volunteering for something local; maybe get involved in politics, amateur dramatics, stand-up comedy, country dancing, etc. You don't have to stick to any of these things long term if you don't want to, but they're good ways to meet people in your city - and then you can make friends with them, and make friends with their friends and so on.
  • Host a few dinner parties - this is fun, and will get you invited to dinner parties, house parties etc. When people have had a lovely evening, they like to reciprocate. 
  • If you're currently working from home and going into the office is an option, do that, try to build connection with your colleagues. If you're working remotely, consider going to a co-working space or coffee-shop. If you're a student, talk more to people on your course, join some clubs at your university. If you're not currently working or studying - look for opportunities to start doing one of those things.  

These are all quite generic suggestions: I don't know enough about your situation to give more targeted advice. My instinct is that something else is causing you to feel alienated, and the presence of the EA community is not as significant a factor as you think it is. You should talk to a few people you're close to about what's going on, and what you might be able to do about it. There probably isn't one drastic action that's a silver bullet that will fix everything; you will have to put some work in. 

Nice post, there's some very useful advice here.  I've made some of my best friends through social media, and found amazing opportunities, & I love how optimistic you are about the potential for good outcomes. 

I would add one note of caution for readers: don't feel compelled to be active on social media if it doesn't work for your psyche. If you can tell that it makes you miserable, it's becoming compulsive,, or it's taking away time that you know is better spent elsewhere (whether that's more impactful work or more rewarding leisure) - scale back. 

That could mean quitting altogether, or it could mean choosing some self-imposed rules to make sure you're protecting yourself. For example: being liberal with the mute button as Nathan recommends; only posting about one subject area; setting yourself strict time limits; having twitter on your browser but never your phone, muting words associated with subjects you know will upset or annoy you, etc. 

I recommend this article, which flippantly characterises the telltale signs of "poster's disease".  Could be a good innoculation against sinking too much time/emotion into posting.

Answer by Rachel May 11, 202218
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Have you just tried not hanging out with EAs so much where you are? Most EA hubs are big cities, there are lots of other people! 

I don't really follow the argument that inflation causes populism. Do you think that inflation will disproportionately strengthen the "populist" wing of the Republicans, rather than just all of them simultaneously? Or even: particularly the inflation hawks? I don't tend to think of inflation hawks as populists, but I'm not from the US so I don't have a perfect sense of the dynamics there, or whether you are using "populism" as a shorthand for "voting Republican".

You've made a good case that inflation is likely to make Biden less popular, and improve the electoral chances of Republicans. But I'm not clear that this is anything more than example of the general rule: when something bad happens, especially something which people can easily notice and connect to government policy:  it makes people like the government less, and the opposition more. 

If low and stable inflation means the government is more likely to stay in power, and you think the current government is better than the alternatives, then you have another reason to wish for low and stable inflation (over and above the economic/welfare reason). I'm just not sure how populism fits into it. 

$100bn to reduce the risk by 100 basis points seems like  a good deal to me, if you think you can model the risk like that. If I've understood the correctly, that would be the equivalent price of $10tn to avoid a certain extinction; which is less than 20% of global GDP. Bargain!