This is interesting. Do you feel that motivation is a bigger factor for you in this advice as opposed to increasing the variance of efforts for doing good as a way of doing more good?
I am not sure in what contexts you give this advice, but I worry that in some cases it might be inappropriate. Say in cases where people’s gut feelings and immediate intuitions are clearly guiding them in non-effective altruistic directions.
I’d prefer a norm where people interested in doing the most good would initially delegate their decisions to people who have thought long and hard on this topic, and if they want to try something else they should elicit feedback from the community. At least, as long as the EA community also has a norm for being open to new ideas.
Fair point. It’s mostly been in the context of telling people excited about technical problems to focus more on the technical problem and less on meta ea and other movement concerns.
This is interesting. Do you feel that motivation is a bigger factor for you in this advice as opposed to increasing the variance of efforts for doing good as a way of doing more good?
I am not sure in what contexts you give this advice, but I worry that in some cases it might be inappropriate. Say in cases where people’s gut feelings and immediate intuitions are clearly guiding them in non-effective altruistic directions.
I’d prefer a norm where people interested in doing the most good would initially delegate their decisions to people who have thought long and hard on this topic, and if they want to try something else they should elicit feedback from the community. At least, as long as the EA community also has a norm for being open to new ideas.
Fair point. It’s mostly been in the context of telling people excited about technical problems to focus more on the technical problem and less on meta ea and other movement concerns.