I’m thinking of doing (1). Is there a particular way you think this should look?
How technical do you think the summary should be? The thing that would be easiest for me to write would require some maths understanding (eg. basic calculus and limits) but no economics understanding. Eg. about as technical as your summary but more maths and less philosophy.
Also, do you have thoughts on length? Eg. do you think a five page summary is substantially more accessible than the paper, or would the summary have to be much shorter than that?
(I’m also interested in what others would find useful)
I personally would suggest a format of: 1. One paragraph summary that any educated layperson easily can understand 2. One page summary that a layperson with college-level math skills can understand 3. 2-5 pages of detail that someone with college-level math and Econ 101 skills can understand
This is just a suggestion though, I don’t have a lot of confidence that it’s correct.
Now done here. It’s a ~10 page summary that someone with college-level math can understand (though I think you could read it, skip the math, and get the general idea).
I also left some comments on the EA Forum post pulling out the first two theorems and the definitions to state them in way that’s hopefully a bit more accessible, skipping some unnecessary jargon and introducing notation only just before it’s used, rather than at the start so you have to jump back. They’re still pretty technical, though. Upon reflection, it probably took me more time to write the comments than it’ll save people to read my comments instead of reading the parts of the paper where they’re found. :/​
There are also several other theorems in that paper.
Thanks! Yeah I should have posted that both of these have now been published, so if anyone else reading this has a request for posts that they haven’t stated publicly, consider doing so!
More accessible summaries of technical work. Some things I would like summarized:
1. Existential risk and economic growth
2. Utilitarianism with and without expected utility
(You can see my own attempt to summarize something similar to #2 here , as one example.)
I’m thinking of doing (1). Is there a particular way you think this should look?
How technical do you think the summary should be? The thing that would be easiest for me to write would require some maths understanding (eg. basic calculus and limits) but no economics understanding. Eg. about as technical as your summary but more maths and less philosophy.
Also, do you have thoughts on length? Eg. do you think a five page summary is substantially more accessible than the paper, or would the summary have to be much shorter than that?
(I’m also interested in what others would find useful)
Awesome!
I personally would suggest a format of:
1. One paragraph summary that any educated layperson easily can understand
2. One page summary that a layperson with college-level math skills can understand
3. 2-5 pages of detail that someone with college-level math and Econ 101 skills can understand
This is just a suggestion though, I don’t have a lot of confidence that it’s correct.
Now done here. It’s a ~10 page summary that someone with college-level math can understand (though I think you could read it, skip the math, and get the general idea).
You rock, thanks so much!
On 2, see this post (a link post for this).
I also left some comments on the EA Forum post pulling out the first two theorems and the definitions to state them in way that’s hopefully a bit more accessible, skipping some unnecessary jargon and introducing notation only just before it’s used, rather than at the start so you have to jump back. They’re still pretty technical, though. Upon reflection, it probably took me more time to write the comments than it’ll save people to read my comments instead of reading the parts of the paper where they’re found. :/​
There are also several other theorems in that paper.
Thanks! Yeah I should have posted that both of these have now been published, so if anyone else reading this has a request for posts that they haven’t stated publicly, consider doing so!