Thanks for writing this Roxanne, I agree that this is a risk—and I’ve also cringed sometimes when I’ve heard EAs say they “don’t care” about certain things. I think it’s good to highlight this as a thing we should be wary of.
It reminds me a bit of how in academia people often say, “I’m interested in x”, where x is some very specific, niche subfield, implying that they’re not interested in anything else—whereas what they really mean is, “x is the focus of my research.” I’ve found myself saying this wrt my own research, and then often caveating, “actually, I’m interested in a tonne of wider stuff, this is just what I’m thinking about at the moment!” So I’d like it if the norm in EA were more towards saying things like, “I’m currently focusing on/working on/thinking about x” rather than, “I care about x”
Thanks for writing this Roxanne, I agree that this is a risk—and I’ve also cringed sometimes when I’ve heard EAs say they “don’t care” about certain things. I think it’s good to highlight this as a thing we should be wary of.
It reminds me a bit of how in academia people often say, “I’m interested in x”, where x is some very specific, niche subfield, implying that they’re not interested in anything else—whereas what they really mean is, “x is the focus of my research.” I’ve found myself saying this wrt my own research, and then often caveating, “actually, I’m interested in a tonne of wider stuff, this is just what I’m thinking about at the moment!” So I’d like it if the norm in EA were more towards saying things like, “I’m currently focusing on/working on/thinking about x” rather than, “I care about x”