# Survey: Help Us Research Coordination Problems In The Rationalist/EA Community

Hi everyone,

I think by this point we're all aware that our world is in an ongoing state of mundane quasi-apocalypse on several dimensions. Climate change, [insect population decline](https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/KwB9jA9FrsNczWr5F/global-insect-declines-why-aren-t-we-all-dead-yet#comments), [people dying around the world at a relentless pace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMNGEY8OZqo), AI risk, global thermonuclear war. The question is not what's wrong with the world, you probably have a good understanding of that. The question is what we're going to do about it. And for too many of us so far the answer is "well, nothing".

Some of the lowest hanging fruit for changing that centers around coordination. I've been creating [lists to map out the LessWrong Diaspora](https://namespace.obormot.net/Main/DiasporaMap), [what active projects exist in the community](https://namespace.obormot.net/Main/DiasporaProjectMap), [tools to help people make their projects more credible](https://namespace.obormot.net/Rdb/Project), and more because I believed it would help create [common knowledge](https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/9QxnfMYccz9QRgZ5z/the-costly-coordination-mechanism-of-common-knowledge) of what resources exist. Eventually I realized that [trivial inconveniences eat most of the gains](https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-trivial-inconveniences). It's nice that I can [show newbie organizers a list of writeups and reports](https://namespace.obormot.net/Rfj.Rfj), but becomes less impressive when you consider it would take an impractical amount of time for them to absorb that knowledge. **It doesn't matter how many resources I put together if they can't answer people's questions without a ton of effort**.

I'm prepared to put together a team that will run a service solving exactly this problem. A query about what the community has learned so far about meetups could be answered by a summary from someone who has done the research. But before doing that I want to be sure [this is a thing people actually want](http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html). I'd also like to confirm that the necessary resources to coordinate exist. For this reason I invite you to take a survey looking at the combination of talent, project ideas, donor capital, popularity of cause areas and willingness to work within the wider rationalist and effective altruist communities.

You should especially take this survey if:

*   You are looking for projects to support, either to help the projects succeed or as opportunities for you to level up
*   You have ideas for projects related to EA/Rationality/X-Risk things for which you want collaborators or financial support
*   You are available to help mentor, assist and guide other people with their projects
*   You want other people to create projects you would be interested in giving money to. Or want to discover existing projects you can support financially.

**Survey Link**: [https://goo.gl/forms/sKUk3YTLvhV12CpS2](https://goo.gl/forms/sKUk3YTLvhV12CpS2)

In any case I will post a write up of the results after the survey closes on May 1st.