I came away from this post a bit confused. It seems like you wish the EA community had better or more consistent models, which is understandable. But when you say:
I’ve also been disappointed again and again when meeting or hearing about prominent EAs in person or when hearing about what it’s like working in EA or EA related (=trying to do good effectively in x cause, e.g. effective animal advocacy) spaces. They’re all just.. human?
What are some of the ways in which you are disappointed? Do the people you meet commonly make logical or factual errors? Are they not productive enough? Do they not communicate as effectively as you would have wished?
I think I just always naively felt that somewhere in the entire world, there had to be superpeople who could reliably tell me exactly what to do with my life.
I empathize tremendously with this. In my case, I began to lose this feeling as I read more and more stories of people who thought they’d found such a superperson, or that they were such a superperson, but turned out to be wrong. I gave up on the idea of finding my own superperson without needing to evaluate too many of those people in my own life.
On the other hand, I do think the EA community, and the organizations within it, have made a lot of progress over the last ten years. The “prominent people” you meet here have flaws, but there are also flaws they don’t have (mostly), making them different from almost every other prominent person in the history of the world. They care a lot more about the truth (seeking it and speaking it), they’ve noticed the skulls, and they are actively trying to get better at things rather than basking in the community’s admiration.
(It helps that the EA community isn’t a very good place for said basking; someone is always ready to point out your mistakes.)
Ten years from now, I expect the community to have accomplished a lot more, and for its most prominent people to be even better at their jobs, even if they never reach the point where they can guide every community member with absolute reliability.
Thanks for reading and replying to my rambling, Aaron.
Reading my post again, I should have taken more time to write it or posted it somewhere else. I feel I’m missing an EA place to anonymously post lower quality texts to. There’s really only facebook and a deserted subreddit. (Though looking at the subreddit now, there are plenty posts with 8+ comments, which would have been more than enough for me. I hadn’t checked it in a while)
I came away from this post a bit confused. It seems like you wish the EA community had better or more consistent models, which is understandable. What are some of the ways in which you are disappointed? Do the people you meet commonly make logical or factual errors? Are they not productive enough? Do they not communicate as effectively as you would have wished?
I think the EA community is doing an exceptional job compared to anything else I’ve seen with the same ambitions. My (immature) disappointment was always just that EA people were “just” really exceptional people, not superhuman utility maximizers as I had hoped. As of now, I don’t have any useful concrete feedback to add to the movement
I empathize tremendously with this. In my case, I began to lose this feeling as I read more and more stories of people who thought they’d found such a superperson, or that they were such a superperson, but turned out to be wrong. I gave up on the idea of finding my own superperson without needing to evaluate too many of those people in my own life.
Thanks for this!
On the other hand, I do think the EA community, and the organizations within it, have made a lot of progress over the last ten years. The “prominent people” you meet here have flaws, but there are also flaws they don’t have (mostly), making them different from almost every other prominent person in the history of the world.
I came away from this post a bit confused. It seems like you wish the EA community had better or more consistent models, which is understandable. But when you say:
What are some of the ways in which you are disappointed? Do the people you meet commonly make logical or factual errors? Are they not productive enough? Do they not communicate as effectively as you would have wished?
I empathize tremendously with this. In my case, I began to lose this feeling as I read more and more stories of people who thought they’d found such a superperson, or that they were such a superperson, but turned out to be wrong. I gave up on the idea of finding my own superperson without needing to evaluate too many of those people in my own life.
On the other hand, I do think the EA community, and the organizations within it, have made a lot of progress over the last ten years. The “prominent people” you meet here have flaws, but there are also flaws they don’t have (mostly), making them different from almost every other prominent person in the history of the world. They care a lot more about the truth (seeking it and speaking it), they’ve noticed the skulls, and they are actively trying to get better at things rather than basking in the community’s admiration.
(It helps that the EA community isn’t a very good place for said basking; someone is always ready to point out your mistakes.)
Ten years from now, I expect the community to have accomplished a lot more, and for its most prominent people to be even better at their jobs, even if they never reach the point where they can guide every community member with absolute reliability.
Thanks for reading and replying to my rambling, Aaron.
Reading my post again, I should have taken more time to write it or posted it somewhere else. I feel I’m missing an EA place to anonymously post lower quality texts to. There’s really only facebook and a deserted subreddit. (Though looking at the subreddit now, there are plenty posts with 8+ comments, which would have been more than enough for me. I hadn’t checked it in a while)
I think the EA community is doing an exceptional job compared to anything else I’ve seen with the same ambitions. My (immature) disappointment was always just that EA people were “just” really exceptional people, not superhuman utility maximizers as I had hoped. As of now, I don’t have any useful concrete feedback to add to the movement
Thanks for this!
I very much agree.