Space cadets 😂🎯 I find myself agreeing with your take and had some thoughts of my own. Internet first groups seem to revolve around low-EQ individual/autists with no grasp of how to “get along” in a group in real life, let alone form said group outside a text-based digital chat. They overvalue their “intelligence” because they’ve never got a C-grade in their cookie-cutter education and completely undervalue/disregard social skills like conversation, making friends, empathy and just connecting with other humans.
The gulf between what they say and what they do is also interesting. Effective altruism , YIMBYs etc. it seems to me, that an element (hopefully small) of these movements are just there for their own gain using the specific morality as a cloak. I suppose this is true of almost all political & social movements. We need a psychopath detector😂
They will not go far. Glad your living situation has improved - a blessing in disguise no doubt. All the best!
It is not a huge point, but the place you were living was not a commune, rather you were in an intentional community. Communes are income sharing (not expense sharing) self selecting residential groups. Lots of people prefer the shorter word commune to "community", but it is a bit like saying you were catholic, when actually you are a protestant - everyone is a Christian, and to many the distinctions are not super important, but to some they are. Or in a more precise analogy it would be like saying you were a radical Catholic Worker activist when you actually worked a straight job and occassionally went to church.
Thanks for commenting. I guess to the Irish mind there is no distinction between a commune and an intentional community given the history of both in Ireland but I will keep your note in mind going forward!
Sure, as i said it is not too big a deal. That point aside, my condolences on your poor treatment. And i have some other thoughts i will share later on communication covenants and transparency tools that we use which might have helped.
I'm genuinely confused by what seems to be a large gap between the facts of the situation and your affective presentation of the situation. A group of people are trying a new thing, with lots of unknowns, and being explicit about the tentativeness with which they are making decisions -- in this case, onboarding new tenants in their aspiring commune.
You don't provide an explicit complaint so one would have to guess what the exact issue is. But it would have to be one (perhaps all) of the following:
-The group's decision that you're not a good fit for their commune project
-The way in which they asked you to leave the commune project
-The nature of communes generally
While you or I might have different intuitions about what an ideal co-living situation would look like, their desire for roommates who would be more involved with their envisioned activities and level of engagement does not seem, on its face, to be an unreasonable desire. And its no one's fault that your own lifestyle doesn't happen to fit in with that vision.
The way in which they broke the news seems pretty reasonable and charitable. Although it was the holiday season, they were explicit that they would be flexible with timelines if you needed more time to find a new living situation.
I'm not sure how your singular experience with one fledgling commune project serves as evidence for the more sweeping claims you're making about communes generally. (I've personally seen both very well-organized communal situations with high-EQ people, and the dire opposite -- like almost all things in life, there's a massive spectrum).
I would agree, however, that TPOT seems to consist of people with EQs that do not match their IQs.
> For some time, I have been ambivalent about the potential of Progress Studies to achieve its goals. This feeling was still in its early stages in February. ... For some reason, it has led to me asking much broader and more pointed questions about the kinds of people certain grant programmes patronize that I think are worth asking. ... All of them fell subject to groupthink.
This is an interesting point. There are a number of people within the Tyler Cowen Extended Universe whom I have enormous respect for (including Tyler Cowen himself!), but I've noticed that the universe as a whole has certain tendencies that give me caution.
One, as you pointed out, is the prevalence of groupthink. Maybe I'm not well-read enough, but I've never seen any arguments, debates, or controversies among people in that circle. This is odd, especially in light of "contrarianism" being an alleged primary value therein. How is this uniformity achieved? Is it because everyone is a saint, and because everyone agrees due to all being correct all the time? Or are there mechanisms that keep debate hushed, or does the circle somehow select for low-disagreeability people?
Two, especially related to Progress Studies, this project seems to be trying to achieve right-of-center outcomes without right-of-center virtues (or at least, while disguising such virtues, hence the name "progress studies" and hence its peculiar color scheme). Another way of putting this is that Progress Studies is conservatism for people who are allergic to the Gods of the Copybook Headings (or at least, those of their precepts which are less popular in the marketplace of ideas). Conservatism that doesn't want to look to closely into the crooked timber of the human heart isn't really conservatism. There is something deeply incongruous, and perhaps even deceptive, about such a sort of "conservatism". It is possible that this may attract people whose appearance and substance differ (or is this Good Straussianism?).
Thanks so much for the detailed comment, Calvin. My reasoning is simply it's a 'vibe' and just seems to be the place a lot of ex-EAs go so can't really succeed otherwise.
I haven't come across vibes that change the world. I think the mentality of EAs is strange as proved by the Sam Atis comment!
So you were a bad vibe and they asked you to leave? Not sure what the problem is - sure, it sucks being told that you’re not that fun to live with, but what they did seems fairly reasonable to me.
I think you should reread the messages, Sam. Wasn't really there often enough to be a 'bad vibe' with work hours etc. Very typical of EAs like yourself to jump to these conclusions particularly when someone like myself is publicly anti-EA.
I just read this whining piece (and the accompanying whining Reddit posts) and it was pretty clear what was going on! I have never read anything you’ve said on EA, I didn’t know you were so anti-EA, you just come across as absurdly annoying in this piece.
Space cadets 😂🎯 I find myself agreeing with your take and had some thoughts of my own. Internet first groups seem to revolve around low-EQ individual/autists with no grasp of how to “get along” in a group in real life, let alone form said group outside a text-based digital chat. They overvalue their “intelligence” because they’ve never got a C-grade in their cookie-cutter education and completely undervalue/disregard social skills like conversation, making friends, empathy and just connecting with other humans.
The gulf between what they say and what they do is also interesting. Effective altruism , YIMBYs etc. it seems to me, that an element (hopefully small) of these movements are just there for their own gain using the specific morality as a cloak. I suppose this is true of almost all political & social movements. We need a psychopath detector😂
They will not go far. Glad your living situation has improved - a blessing in disguise no doubt. All the best!
Great points, James. Hopefully Emergent Ventures can give a psychopath detector development grant to someone!
It is not a huge point, but the place you were living was not a commune, rather you were in an intentional community. Communes are income sharing (not expense sharing) self selecting residential groups. Lots of people prefer the shorter word commune to "community", but it is a bit like saying you were catholic, when actually you are a protestant - everyone is a Christian, and to many the distinctions are not super important, but to some they are. Or in a more precise analogy it would be like saying you were a radical Catholic Worker activist when you actually worked a straight job and occassionally went to church.
Hey Paxus,
Thanks for commenting. I guess to the Irish mind there is no distinction between a commune and an intentional community given the history of both in Ireland but I will keep your note in mind going forward!
Sure, as i said it is not too big a deal. That point aside, my condolences on your poor treatment. And i have some other thoughts i will share later on communication covenants and transparency tools that we use which might have helped.
Please do! Would love to read about them - feel free to email at tolanro@tcd.ie.
I'm genuinely confused by what seems to be a large gap between the facts of the situation and your affective presentation of the situation. A group of people are trying a new thing, with lots of unknowns, and being explicit about the tentativeness with which they are making decisions -- in this case, onboarding new tenants in their aspiring commune.
You don't provide an explicit complaint so one would have to guess what the exact issue is. But it would have to be one (perhaps all) of the following:
-The group's decision that you're not a good fit for their commune project
-The way in which they asked you to leave the commune project
-The nature of communes generally
While you or I might have different intuitions about what an ideal co-living situation would look like, their desire for roommates who would be more involved with their envisioned activities and level of engagement does not seem, on its face, to be an unreasonable desire. And its no one's fault that your own lifestyle doesn't happen to fit in with that vision.
The way in which they broke the news seems pretty reasonable and charitable. Although it was the holiday season, they were explicit that they would be flexible with timelines if you needed more time to find a new living situation.
I'm not sure how your singular experience with one fledgling commune project serves as evidence for the more sweeping claims you're making about communes generally. (I've personally seen both very well-organized communal situations with high-EQ people, and the dire opposite -- like almost all things in life, there's a massive spectrum).
I would agree, however, that TPOT seems to consist of people with EQs that do not match their IQs.
Thanks for your comment, Christian.
And thank you for your story.
> For some time, I have been ambivalent about the potential of Progress Studies to achieve its goals. This feeling was still in its early stages in February. ... For some reason, it has led to me asking much broader and more pointed questions about the kinds of people certain grant programmes patronize that I think are worth asking. ... All of them fell subject to groupthink.
This is an interesting point. There are a number of people within the Tyler Cowen Extended Universe whom I have enormous respect for (including Tyler Cowen himself!), but I've noticed that the universe as a whole has certain tendencies that give me caution.
One, as you pointed out, is the prevalence of groupthink. Maybe I'm not well-read enough, but I've never seen any arguments, debates, or controversies among people in that circle. This is odd, especially in light of "contrarianism" being an alleged primary value therein. How is this uniformity achieved? Is it because everyone is a saint, and because everyone agrees due to all being correct all the time? Or are there mechanisms that keep debate hushed, or does the circle somehow select for low-disagreeability people?
Two, especially related to Progress Studies, this project seems to be trying to achieve right-of-center outcomes without right-of-center virtues (or at least, while disguising such virtues, hence the name "progress studies" and hence its peculiar color scheme). Another way of putting this is that Progress Studies is conservatism for people who are allergic to the Gods of the Copybook Headings (or at least, those of their precepts which are less popular in the marketplace of ideas). Conservatism that doesn't want to look to closely into the crooked timber of the human heart isn't really conservatism. There is something deeply incongruous, and perhaps even deceptive, about such a sort of "conservatism". It is possible that this may attract people whose appearance and substance differ (or is this Good Straussianism?).
Now the angel's got a fiddle
And the devil's got a harp
Every soul is like a minnow
Every mind is like a shark
I've opened every window
But the house, the house is dark
Just say Uncle, then it's simple
What happens to the heart
Thanks so much for the detailed comment, Calvin. My reasoning is simply it's a 'vibe' and just seems to be the place a lot of ex-EAs go so can't really succeed otherwise.
I haven't come across vibes that change the world. I think the mentality of EAs is strange as proved by the Sam Atis comment!
So you were a bad vibe and they asked you to leave? Not sure what the problem is - sure, it sucks being told that you’re not that fun to live with, but what they did seems fairly reasonable to me.
I think you should reread the messages, Sam. Wasn't really there often enough to be a 'bad vibe' with work hours etc. Very typical of EAs like yourself to jump to these conclusions particularly when someone like myself is publicly anti-EA.
“You weren’t that fun to live with”
“What do you mean I wasn’t that fun to live with?! I was never even there!”
Don't really know how you get that from the piece but at least I don't use a pseudonym.
You’d benefit from a pseudonym given how awfully you come across in this post.
I just read this whining piece (and the accompanying whining Reddit posts) and it was pretty clear what was going on! I have never read anything you’ve said on EA, I didn’t know you were so anti-EA, you just come across as absurdly annoying in this piece.