In the spirit of reversing advice, the very short case for not asking yourself whether something is action-relevant, is that curiosity is an incredibly valuable tool for motivation and directing your learning where there is something important to be learned. Justifying every question on decision-relevance replaces curiosity with (semi) explicit reasoning; it is not clear to me that this is a good trade (many of the best thinkers of the past seem to me to be extremely curious, and in my experience, explicit reasoning is not very powerful).
I don’t have a strong opinion on whether the median EA interested in research should be taking this advice or its opposite.
Yes, I also believe this! And I think the two pieces of advice aren’t necessarily contradictory—I could imagine stages in which curiosity is what you need, and stages where you’d want more focus. I guess I wrote this within the context of already being in touch with my curiosity and needing to rein it in a bit.
Also, I hope it’s sufficiently clear that I’m not trying to claim that action-relevance is *all* you should think about as a fledgling researcher? (If not, I’m happy to make an edit to the post)
If I have the time, I’d like to write several research skills posts for a more nuanced picture, but it seemed good to focus on one concept at a time, so necessarily it might look a bit one-sided.
I hope it’s sufficiently clear that I’m not trying to claim that action-relevance is *all* you should think about as a fledgling researcher?
I didn’t think that you thought that; I think the post is fine as is. I wasn’t trying to critique this post; it’s an important concept and I can certainly think of some people who I think should take this advice.
In the spirit of reversing advice, the very short case for not asking yourself whether something is action-relevant, is that curiosity is an incredibly valuable tool for motivation and directing your learning where there is something important to be learned. Justifying every question on decision-relevance replaces curiosity with (semi) explicit reasoning; it is not clear to me that this is a good trade (many of the best thinkers of the past seem to me to be extremely curious, and in my experience, explicit reasoning is not very powerful).
I don’t have a strong opinion on whether the median EA interested in research should be taking this advice or its opposite.
Yes, I also believe this! And I think the two pieces of advice aren’t necessarily contradictory—I could imagine stages in which curiosity is what you need, and stages where you’d want more focus. I guess I wrote this within the context of already being in touch with my curiosity and needing to rein it in a bit.
Also, I hope it’s sufficiently clear that I’m not trying to claim that action-relevance is *all* you should think about as a fledgling researcher? (If not, I’m happy to make an edit to the post)
If I have the time, I’d like to write several research skills posts for a more nuanced picture, but it seemed good to focus on one concept at a time, so necessarily it might look a bit one-sided.
I didn’t think that you thought that; I think the post is fine as is. I wasn’t trying to critique this post; it’s an important concept and I can certainly think of some people who I think should take this advice.