I recall Ben Kuhn wishing a couple months ago there was a greater diversity of posts on the EA Forum. He said it seemed most posts were about keeping the movement from falling apart or whatever by all us learning to communicate better. Not that this is not an important issue, but I sympathize with Ben’s point that if this is all their is to read as content coming out of the EA Forum, we may be overfocusing on the topic, especially if we’re not making live traction on it anyway, and it makes things boring, less interesting, and less engaging.
I’m not sure why this is the case. Perhaps it’s because the idea effective altruism is a community in which everyone is important and talking about that is merely the most accessible possible issue. That is, it’s something literally everyone here can relate to. Anyone who in some sense identifies with effective altruism can appreciate that, and thus reads the post. On the other hand, other posts will be by definition constrained to a more narrow topic, and thus won’t be read by everyone. If not everyone reads other posts, they won’t know to or bother to upvote them. This may explain why all the top posts are the just discussing the idea of the effective altruism community in the abstract. The most recent top posts have been those from Peter Hurford, on why the thinks there ought to still be a high proportion of earning to give within the movement, and why he believe effective altruism risks falling into “meta traps”. That might be a counter to my hypothesis, as those topics are of more niche interest rather than being generally relatable to people who don’t keep up with all effective altruism news.
Anyway, I’m glad to notice it seems there is a greater diversity of potss on the Forum lately. Right now, on the page of the newest posts on the forum, I’m seeing:
Posts about cause selection by individual philanthropists
Posts about how the EU is legally obligated to double their foreign aid spending, and other discussions of policy as it relates to global poverty and the refugee crisis
Discussions of evidence-based policy and political debiasing, from the work Stefan Schubert is doing
The potential moral value of post-human futures
Assessment of the effectiveness of the language we use in expressing our ethical choices behind diets
A vast expansion of the types of peer-to-peer fundraisers Charity Science allows
Discussion of the founder of LinkedIn’s reaction to Doing Good Better and effective altruism as a whole
Some of these things might seem weird. Some of these topics strike me as weird. However, I think they’re all intersting, and I intend to read each of these posts. Other users might think some of those posts are so weird or are taking effective altruism into such long-shot territory they don’t belong on the EA Forum. However, they’re definitely not boring. They’re not dominating the top posts, and I’m not saying they should, but at least there’s a sufficient volume of diversity we can say effective altruists are less afraid not to speak up thoughtfully on what they bleieve are important considerations just because they’re not shared by everyone.
In the last month, I’m glad to notice, there is a greater diversity of posts on the EA
I haven’t been sure how to balance niche vs. broad posts. I have written a couple of fairly niche essays recently, and I considered publishing them here but decided not to. My essay On Values Spreading was fairly niche, and originally I wasn’t going to publish it until a friend suggested I should. It hasn’t gotten as many upvotes as most of my other posts, which suggests to me that not as many people are interested. This might not be a bad thing though.
If I’m remembering verbal conversations correctly (always tricky to do), Ryan’s original vision was for people to consolidate much of their EA blogging on the Forum. I agreed that that was a good thing and do generally try to encourage it (though Peter Hurford and I were perhaps overly sceptical about it actually happening). The only exception would be if something is of extremely limited interest or clearly bad PR, and I’m with those people who find EAs over-worry about these things. Hell, even your exploration of prioritising funding rat farms might make the cut. ;)
Hmm. I’d expect that only maybe 10% of EAs would seriously consider rat farms as an effective charity so that post seemed pretty niche, and my post on whether preventing human extinction is good seems like it could be bad PR (I have no problem posting on my blog but I’m not sure what the standards should be for a shared forum). I could be wrong about those though, and I would be willing to consider posting all my EA-related writings to the forum.
I agree with Tom. I think the core values of EA have to include:
Always keep looking for new creative ways to do better.
Maintain an open, honest and respectful discussion with your peers.
In particular exploring new interventions and causes should always be in the EA spotlight. When you think something is an effective charity but most EAs wouldn’t agree with you, in my book it’s a reason to state your case loud and clear rather than self-censor.
I recall Ben Kuhn wishing a couple months ago there was a greater diversity of posts on the EA Forum. He said it seemed most posts were about keeping the movement from falling apart or whatever by all us learning to communicate better. Not that this is not an important issue, but I sympathize with Ben’s point that if this is all their is to read as content coming out of the EA Forum, we may be overfocusing on the topic, especially if we’re not making live traction on it anyway, and it makes things boring, less interesting, and less engaging.
I’m not sure why this is the case. Perhaps it’s because the idea effective altruism is a community in which everyone is important and talking about that is merely the most accessible possible issue. That is, it’s something literally everyone here can relate to. Anyone who in some sense identifies with effective altruism can appreciate that, and thus reads the post. On the other hand, other posts will be by definition constrained to a more narrow topic, and thus won’t be read by everyone. If not everyone reads other posts, they won’t know to or bother to upvote them. This may explain why all the top posts are the just discussing the idea of the effective altruism community in the abstract. The most recent top posts have been those from Peter Hurford, on why the thinks there ought to still be a high proportion of earning to give within the movement, and why he believe effective altruism risks falling into “meta traps”. That might be a counter to my hypothesis, as those topics are of more niche interest rather than being generally relatable to people who don’t keep up with all effective altruism news.
Anyway, I’m glad to notice it seems there is a greater diversity of potss on the Forum lately. Right now, on the page of the newest posts on the forum, I’m seeing:
Posts about cause selection by individual philanthropists
Posts about how the EU is legally obligated to double their foreign aid spending, and other discussions of policy as it relates to global poverty and the refugee crisis
Discussions of evidence-based policy and political debiasing, from the work Stefan Schubert is doing
The potential moral value of post-human futures
Assessment of the effectiveness of the language we use in expressing our ethical choices behind diets
A vast expansion of the types of peer-to-peer fundraisers Charity Science allows
Discussion of the founder of LinkedIn’s reaction to Doing Good Better and effective altruism as a whole
Some of these things might seem weird. Some of these topics strike me as weird. However, I think they’re all intersting, and I intend to read each of these posts. Other users might think some of those posts are so weird or are taking effective altruism into such long-shot territory they don’t belong on the EA Forum. However, they’re definitely not boring. They’re not dominating the top posts, and I’m not saying they should, but at least there’s a sufficient volume of diversity we can say effective altruists are less afraid not to speak up thoughtfully on what they bleieve are important considerations just because they’re not shared by everyone.
In the last month, I’m glad to notice, there is a greater diversity of posts on the EA
I haven’t been sure how to balance niche vs. broad posts. I have written a couple of fairly niche essays recently, and I considered publishing them here but decided not to. My essay On Values Spreading was fairly niche, and originally I wasn’t going to publish it until a friend suggested I should. It hasn’t gotten as many upvotes as most of my other posts, which suggests to me that not as many people are interested. This might not be a bad thing though.
If I’m remembering verbal conversations correctly (always tricky to do), Ryan’s original vision was for people to consolidate much of their EA blogging on the Forum. I agreed that that was a good thing and do generally try to encourage it (though Peter Hurford and I were perhaps overly sceptical about it actually happening). The only exception would be if something is of extremely limited interest or clearly bad PR, and I’m with those people who find EAs over-worry about these things. Hell, even your exploration of prioritising funding rat farms might make the cut. ;)
Hmm. I’d expect that only maybe 10% of EAs would seriously consider rat farms as an effective charity so that post seemed pretty niche, and my post on whether preventing human extinction is good seems like it could be bad PR (I have no problem posting on my blog but I’m not sure what the standards should be for a shared forum). I could be wrong about those though, and I would be willing to consider posting all my EA-related writings to the forum.
I agree with Tom. I think the core values of EA have to include:
Always keep looking for new creative ways to do better.
Maintain an open, honest and respectful discussion with your peers.
In particular exploring new interventions and causes should always be in the EA spotlight. When you think something is an effective charity but most EAs wouldn’t agree with you, in my book it’s a reason to state your case loud and clear rather than self-censor.