EA - An EA's Guide to Berkeley and the Bay Area by Elika

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: An EA's Guide to Berkeley and the Bay Area, published by Elika on October 13, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. If you are visiting or new to the Bay (and Berkeley specifically) and are looking for an EA community, this guide is a useful place to start. It can be a difficult place to navigate for newcomers, and in this guide we (Elika and Vaidehi, communtiy members of East Bay EA) hope to make it a bit easier. This guide is not a representation of the views of everyone in the community or any organisation. This guide is most helpful if you’re already planning or seriously considering coming to Berkeley and want to get more context on the community and culture, rather than trying to convince you to come or be fully comprehensive. We mostly focus on the Berkeley community in this guide, but a lot of what we talk about is relevant for the San Francisco community as well. We try to be pretty frank on the challenges and the negatives because we think it’s important to give an accurate picture of the community. That being said, Berkeley (and the Bay) is a great place with a really vibrant EA community! We hope you enjoy it and are welcomed warmly :) To encourage that, feel free to reach out to any local community organisers listed in the People section! We also recommend joining the group chats listed. Overview Here’s a map. EAs usually mean San Francisco or Berkeley in the East Bay (a uni town for UC Berkeley 45 minutes from San Francisco) when they say “the bay”. Berkeley is particularly focused on technical AI alignment, housing organisations like Redwood Research, CFAR, MIRI, CHAI (at UC Berkeley) and Lightcone Infrastructure. As a result, there is significant overlap between the EA and rationalist communities in Berkeley, much more so than any other EA community (see more). Generally, most senior or engaged community members in Berkeley (and many in SF) are longtermists and work on AI safety. Many longtermist EA programs in summer of 2022 are being hosted in Berkeley and bring in people from all over, such as the SERI MATS program and the EA Communications Fellowship. The San Francisco community is overlapping but distinct, with relatively less rationalists and AI focused people. Organisations who have offices in SF include Open Phil, GiveWell, Founders’ Pledge, and some EA startups like Mission Barns (alternative meats) and Momentum. OpenAI and Anthropic also have offices in SF. The Bay is a major hub because of the founders' effects - several historically important founding communities and organisations of the EA movement were founded and continue to be based here. This includes rationalist organisations like LessWrong, CFAR and MIRI in Berkeley, and separately GiveWell in San Francisco. Find links to community pages here, advice about moving to an EA hub here. Culture The EA culture in Berkeley is influenced by the communities it is a part of - the rationality, silicon valley / tech communities. Most people are very passionate and dedicated longtermists who tend to take existential risks very seriously and/or have short AGI timelines. There can be a “doom-y” vibe (sometimes in social settings as well, although you can find events that are more fun). Below is an incomplete list of some aspects of the community that might be important to contextualise your experiences: The community in Berkeley is overwhelmingly longtermist. You may feel alienated if you don’t hold these beliefs, or find it more difficult to find lots of in-depth conversations on other cause areas because people are primarily interested in a few topics. There can be a more intense work culture in the Bay, with high variance. For some people it’s normal to work long hours and come in on the weekends. This can be really motivating and inspiring for some people. But there can also be pressure to wor...