It doesn’t feel contradictory to me, but I think I see where you’re coming from. I hold the following two beliefs which may seem contradictory :
1. Many of the aforementioned blindspots seem like nonsense, and I would be surprised if extensive research in any would produce much of value. 2. At large, people should form and act on their own beliefs rather than differing to what is accepted by some authority.
There’s an endless number of things which could turn out to be important. All else equal, EA’s should prioritise researching the things which seem the most likely to turn out to be important.
This is why I am happy that the EA community is not spending time engaging with many of these research directions, as I think they’re unlikely to bear fruit. That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to change my mind if I were presented a really good case for their importance!
If someone disagrees with my assessment then I would very much welcome research and write-ups, after which I would not be paying the cost of
”should I (or someone else) prioritise researching psychedelics over this other really important thing”
but rather
”should I prioritise reading this paper/writeup, over the many other potentially less important papers?”
If everyone would refuse to engage with even a short writeup on the topic, I would agree that there was a problem and to be fair I think there are some issues with misprioritisation due to poor use of proxies such as “does the field sound too weird” or “is the author high status”. But I think in the far majority of cases, what happens is simply that the writeup wasn’t sufficiently convincing to justify moving away resources from other important research fields to engage further. This will of course seem like a mistake to the people who are convinced of the topic’s importance, but like the correct action to those who aren’t.
It doesn’t feel contradictory to me, but I think I see where you’re coming from. I hold the following two beliefs which may seem contradictory :
1. Many of the aforementioned blindspots seem like nonsense, and I would be surprised if extensive research in any would produce much of value.
2. At large, people should form and act on their own beliefs rather than differing to what is accepted by some authority.
There’s an endless number of things which could turn out to be important. All else equal, EA’s should prioritise researching the things which seem the most likely to turn out to be important.
This is why I am happy that the EA community is not spending time engaging with many of these research directions, as I think they’re unlikely to bear fruit. That doesn’t mean I’m not willing to change my mind if I were presented a really good case for their importance!
If someone disagrees with my assessment then I would very much welcome research and write-ups, after which I would not be paying the cost of
”should I (or someone else) prioritise researching psychedelics over this other really important thing”
but rather
”should I prioritise reading this paper/writeup, over the many other potentially less important papers?”
If everyone would refuse to engage with even a short writeup on the topic, I would agree that there was a problem and to be fair I think there are some issues with misprioritisation due to poor use of proxies such as “does the field sound too weird” or “is the author high status”. But I think in the far majority of cases, what happens is simply that the writeup wasn’t sufficiently convincing to justify moving away resources from other important research fields to engage further. This will of course seem like a mistake to the people who are convinced of the topic’s importance, but like the correct action to those who aren’t.