Excited to see this convo kicked off, thank you all! Looks like an exciting and valuable direction you’re setting out on.
This is one of the primary causes of my being less involved in EA work that I would have expected. I would be very interested to contribute and participate in this work. How might I do that?
Some Qs I consider in the EA space that may/may not map to your intial thinking here:
What might causes look like if we think of them as emergent? e.g. if a pandemic = a phenomenon emerging from systems & systems interactions, would we expect to get far prioritizing technically optimal solutions to problems that may have been framed without key systems-thinking elements—e.g. Social Sciences & Humanities research (technical economics aside), human-centred design, foresight & convergence, etc? What might change in how we understand and shape cause categories and priorities, the goals and anticipated effects of our decicions and actions, etc.
How might we understand our own situatedness interacting with a cause, taking a systems-thinking perspective where no one stands in a magical place beyond systems?
There is loads of work and perspectives shared in this area relevant to EA efforts even if not labelled as such, plus entire fields of complexity science, systems thinking, future studies, convergence research...what might be most formative and informative?
These are obviously enormous questions and not tightly refined, but it’s the “but what about...” thinking that often starts for me so I’m throwing them out there :)
Hi Hillary! Thanks so much for engaging, glad to read that our sequence is striking a nerve!
Quick note on getting involved and contributing: our work on these topics has for now culminated in posting this sequence, with no specific projects planned as a direct follow-up. That said, we spell out our ideas for taking this forward in our last post (which will be published in three weeks, on 8 Sep, if things go as planned). Very excited for you to have a look at those and let us (and the rest of the forum) know if any of them sound worthwhile! And if our group itself decides to commit to a follow-up project, we’ll let you know :)
As for your questions: I don’t think I’ll be able to do them justice in a brief comment here, but do want to say that I appreciate you posting them, will mull them over myself as I find the time, and am curious what others here on the forum think about them! In terms of connecting directly to our sequence of posts:
I think your first and third questions are tightly linked to the thinking around systemic change that we’ve been developing (more on that in post 2, published next week)
Thee second question around how we understand ourselves as actors within system is super interesting and, I think, one we’ve been underexploring in the sequence. Curious to see that patched/complemented by future work!
I’m personally really interested in your third question around making more use of sophisticated existing perspectives, figuring out which of these perspectives are most valuable to the EA-type quest of making the world better effectively, and exploring how exactly they can be integrated with existing frameworks and approaches within EA. I think integral altruism offers a start at that, but remain keen to see and engage in more discussions around that challenge!
Excited to see this convo kicked off, thank you all! Looks like an exciting and valuable direction you’re setting out on.
This is one of the primary causes of my being less involved in EA work that I would have expected. I would be very interested to contribute and participate in this work. How might I do that?
Some Qs I consider in the EA space that may/may not map to your intial thinking here:
What might causes look like if we think of them as emergent? e.g. if a pandemic = a phenomenon emerging from systems & systems interactions, would we expect to get far prioritizing technically optimal solutions to problems that may have been framed without key systems-thinking elements—e.g. Social Sciences & Humanities research (technical economics aside), human-centred design, foresight & convergence, etc? What might change in how we understand and shape cause categories and priorities, the goals and anticipated effects of our decicions and actions, etc.
How might we understand our own situatedness interacting with a cause, taking a systems-thinking perspective where no one stands in a magical place beyond systems?
There is loads of work and perspectives shared in this area relevant to EA efforts even if not labelled as such, plus entire fields of complexity science, systems thinking, future studies, convergence research...what might be most formative and informative?
These are obviously enormous questions and not tightly refined, but it’s the “but what about...” thinking that often starts for me so I’m throwing them out there :)
Hi Hillary! Thanks so much for engaging, glad to read that our sequence is striking a nerve!
Quick note on getting involved and contributing: our work on these topics has for now culminated in posting this sequence, with no specific projects planned as a direct follow-up. That said, we spell out our ideas for taking this forward in our last post (which will be published in three weeks, on 8 Sep, if things go as planned). Very excited for you to have a look at those and let us (and the rest of the forum) know if any of them sound worthwhile! And if our group itself decides to commit to a follow-up project, we’ll let you know :)
As for your questions: I don’t think I’ll be able to do them justice in a brief comment here, but do want to say that I appreciate you posting them, will mull them over myself as I find the time, and am curious what others here on the forum think about them! In terms of connecting directly to our sequence of posts:
I think your first and third questions are tightly linked to the thinking around systemic change that we’ve been developing (more on that in post 2, published next week)
Thee second question around how we understand ourselves as actors within system is super interesting and, I think, one we’ve been underexploring in the sequence. Curious to see that patched/complemented by future work!
I’m personally really interested in your third question around making more use of sophisticated existing perspectives, figuring out which of these perspectives are most valuable to the EA-type quest of making the world better effectively, and exploring how exactly they can be integrated with existing frameworks and approaches within EA. I think integral altruism offers a start at that, but remain keen to see and engage in more discussions around that challenge!