Just because a community is small and most smart people are outside of it doesn’t mean that the community cannot have a disproportionately large impact. The Vienna Circle is one example (analytic philosophy and everything downstream of it would look very different without them) and they were somewhat insular. Gertrud Stein’s Salons and the Chelsea Hotel might have had a similar impact on art and literature in the 20th century.
Importantly, I’m not saying EA is the same (arguably it’s already too large to be included in that list), but the argument that statistically most smart people are outside of a small community is not a good argument for whether that community will be impactful or for whether that community should engage more with the rest of the world.
not a good argument for whether that community will be impactful
This seems like a straw man. Where does the OP claim EA is not impactful? Given his strong engagement with the movement, I assume he believes that it is.
not a good argument for … whether that community should engage more with the rest of the world.
Cherry picking a couple of small groups that achieved moderate success—one of whom entirely abandoned their research project after several decades after sustained and well-argued attack from people outside the circle—doesn’t seem like a good counterargument to the claim that being a small group should encourage humility.
This seems like a straw man. Where does the OP claim EA is not impactful? Given his strong engagement with the movement, I assume he believes that it is.
I think there might be a misunderstanding here? My entire point is that OP’s conclusions are valid (they’re saying a lot of true things like “Small communities can get a lot of impressive stuff done” and “Your little bubble will not solve the all the secrets of the universe”) but the argument for those conclusions is invalid.
The argument goes[1]: if you are a small community and you don’t following my advice then your impact is strongly limited.
My counter is a demonstration by counterexample, I argue that the argument can’t be valid, since there exist small communities that don’t follow OPs advice and that made a lot more than, in OPs words, “a small dent in the vast mine of unknown knowledge”.
Cherry picking a couple of small groups [...] doesn’t seem like a good counterargument to the claim that being a small group should encourage humility.
I hope the previous paragraph makes it clear why ‘cherry picking’ is appropriate here? To disprove an implication it’s sufficient to produce an instance where the implication doesn’t hold.
that achieved moderate success—one of whom entirely abandoned their research project after several decades after sustained and well-argued attack from people outside the circle
I guess here we have more of an object-level disagreement? Just because a philosophy eventually became canonised doesn’t mean it was moderately successful. The fact that most of analytic philosophy was developed either in support or in opposition of logical positivism is pretty much the highest achievement possible in philosophy? And, according to the logic outlined above, it’s not actually sufficient to explain away one of my counter-examples, to defend the original argument you actually have to explain away all of my counter-examples.
What are you saying it proves that is demonstrably untrue?
Just because a community is small and most smart people are outside of it doesn’t mean that the community cannot have a disproportionately large impact. The Vienna Circle is one example (analytic philosophy and everything downstream of it would look very different without them) and they were somewhat insular. Gertrud Stein’s Salons and the Chelsea Hotel might have had a similar impact on art and literature in the 20th century.
Importantly, I’m not saying EA is the same (arguably it’s already too large to be included in that list), but the argument that statistically most smart people are outside of a small community is not a good argument for whether that community will be impactful or for whether that community should engage more with the rest of the world.
This seems like a straw man. Where does the OP claim EA is not impactful? Given his strong engagement with the movement, I assume he believes that it is.
Cherry picking a couple of small groups that achieved moderate success—one of whom entirely abandoned their research project after several decades after sustained and well-argued attack from people outside the circle—doesn’t seem like a good counterargument to the claim that being a small group should encourage humility.
I think there might be a misunderstanding here? My entire point is that OP’s conclusions are valid (they’re saying a lot of true things like “Small communities can get a lot of impressive stuff done” and “Your little bubble will not solve the all the secrets of the universe”) but the argument for those conclusions is invalid.
The argument goes[1]: if you are a small community and you don’t following my advice then your impact is strongly limited.
My counter is a demonstration by counterexample, I argue that the argument can’t be valid, since there exist small communities that don’t follow OPs advice and that made a lot more than, in OPs words, “a small dent in the vast mine of unknown knowledge”.
I hope the previous paragraph makes it clear why ‘cherry picking’ is appropriate here? To disprove an implication it’s sufficient to produce an instance where the implication doesn’t hold.
I guess here we have more of an object-level disagreement? Just because a philosophy eventually became canonised doesn’t mean it was moderately successful. The fact that most of analytic philosophy was developed either in support or in opposition of logical positivism is pretty much the highest achievement possible in philosophy? And, according to the logic outlined above, it’s not actually sufficient to explain away one of my counter-examples, to defend the original argument you actually have to explain away all of my counter-examples.
my paraphrase, would be curious if you disagree