Is there a reason this isn’t being done? Is it just too expensive?
From where I’m sitting, there are a whole bunch of potentially highly useful things that aren’t being done. After several years around the EA community, I’ve gotten a better model of why that is:
1) There’s a very limited set of EAs who are entrepreneurial, trusted by funders, and have the necessary specific skills and interests to do many specific things. (Which respected EAs want to take a 5 to 20 year bet on field anthropology?) 2) It often takes a fair amount of funder buy-in to do new projects. This can take several years to develop, especially for an research area that’s new. 3) Outside of OpenPhil, funding is quite limited. It’s pretty scary and risky to start something new and go for it. You might get funding from EA Funds this year, but who’s to say if you’ll have to fire your staff in 3 years.
On doing anthropology, I personally think there might be lower hanging fruit first engaging with other written moral systems we haven’t engaged with. I’d be curious to get an EA interpretation of parts of Continental Philosophy, Conservative Philosophy, and the philosophies and writings of many of the great international traditions. That said, doing more traditional anthropology could also be pretty interesting.
First, neat idea, and thanks for suggesting it!
From where I’m sitting, there are a whole bunch of potentially highly useful things that aren’t being done. After several years around the EA community, I’ve gotten a better model of why that is:
1) There’s a very limited set of EAs who are entrepreneurial, trusted by funders, and have the necessary specific skills and interests to do many specific things. (Which respected EAs want to take a 5 to 20 year bet on field anthropology?)
2) It often takes a fair amount of funder buy-in to do new projects. This can take several years to develop, especially for an research area that’s new.
3) Outside of OpenPhil, funding is quite limited. It’s pretty scary and risky to start something new and go for it. You might get funding from EA Funds this year, but who’s to say if you’ll have to fire your staff in 3 years.
On doing anthropology, I personally think there might be lower hanging fruit first engaging with other written moral systems we haven’t engaged with. I’d be curious to get an EA interpretation of parts of Continental Philosophy, Conservative Philosophy, and the philosophies and writings of many of the great international traditions. That said, doing more traditional anthropology could also be pretty interesting.