also I have a strong suspicion that a lot of needed research work in EA ājust isnāt that hardā and if itās done by less competent people, this frees up other EA researchers to do more important work.
I agree with that suspicion, especially if we include things like āJust collect a bunch of stuff in one placeā or āJust summarise some stuffā as āresearchā. I think a substantial portion of my impact to date has probably come from that sort of thing (examples in this sentence from a post I made earlier today: āIāmaddictedtocreatingcollectionsā). It basically always feel like (a) a lot of other people couldāve done what Iām doing and (b) itās kinda crazy no one had yet. I also sometimes donāt have time to execute on some of my seemingly-very-executable and actually-not-that-time-consuming ideas, and the time I do spend on such things does slow down my progress otherwork that does seem to require more specialised skills. I also think this would apply to at least some things that are more classically āresearchā outputs than collections or summaries are.
But I want to push back on āthis frees up other EA researchers to do more important workā. I think you probably mean āthis frees up other EA researchers to do work that theyāre more uniquely suited forā? I think (and your comment seems to imply you agree?) that thereās not a very strong correlation between importance and difficulty/āuniqueness-of-skillset-requiredāi.e., many low-hanging fruit remain unplucked despite being rather juicy.
Strongly agree with this. While I was working on LEAN and the EA Hub I felt that there were a lot of very necessary and valuable things to do, that nobody wanted to do (or fund) because they seemed too easy. But a lot of value is lost, and important things are undermined if everyone turns their noses up at simple tasks. Iām really glad that since then CEA has significantly built up their local group support. But itās a perennial pitfall to watch out for.
But I want to push back on āthis frees up other EA researchers to do more important workā. I think you probably mean āthis frees up other EA researchers to do work that theyāre more uniquely suited forā? I think (and your comment seems to imply you agree?) that thereās not a very strong correlation between importance and difficulty/āuniqueness-of-skillset-requiredāi.e., many low-hanging fruit remain unplucked despite being rather juicy.
I think this is probably true. One thing to flag here is peopleās counterfactuals are not necessarily in research. I think one belief that I recently updated towards but havenāt fully incorporated in my decision-making is that for a non-trivial subset of EAs in prominent org positions (particularly STEM-trained risk-neutral Americans with elite networks), counterfactuals might be more like expected E2G earnings more in the mid-7 figures or so* than the low- to mid- 6 figures I was previously assuming.
*to be clear, almost all of this is EV is in the high upside things, very few people make 7 figures working jobby jobs.
I agree with that suspicion, especially if we include things like āJust collect a bunch of stuff in one placeā or āJust summarise some stuffā as āresearchā. I think a substantial portion of my impact to date has probably come from that sort of thing (examples in this sentence from a post I made earlier today: āIām addicted to creating collectionsā). It basically always feel like (a) a lot of other people couldāve done what Iām doing and (b) itās kinda crazy no one had yet. I also sometimes donāt have time to execute on some of my seemingly-very-executable and actually-not-that-time-consuming ideas, and the time I do spend on such things does slow down my progress other work that does seem to require more specialised skills. I also think this would apply to at least some things that are more classically āresearchā outputs than collections or summaries are.
But I want to push back on āthis frees up other EA researchers to do more important workā. I think you probably mean āthis frees up other EA researchers to do work that theyāre more uniquely suited forā? I think (and your comment seems to imply you agree?) that thereās not a very strong correlation between importance and difficulty/āuniqueness-of-skillset-requiredāi.e., many low-hanging fruit remain unplucked despite being rather juicy.
Strongly agree with this. While I was working on LEAN and the EA Hub I felt that there were a lot of very necessary and valuable things to do, that nobody wanted to do (or fund) because they seemed too easy. But a lot of value is lost, and important things are undermined if everyone turns their noses up at simple tasks. Iām really glad that since then CEA has significantly built up their local group support. But itās a perennial pitfall to watch out for.
I think this is probably true. One thing to flag here is peopleās counterfactuals are not necessarily in research. I think one belief that I recently updated towards but havenāt fully incorporated in my decision-making is that for a non-trivial subset of EAs in prominent org positions (particularly STEM-trained risk-neutral Americans with elite networks), counterfactuals might be more like expected E2G earnings more in the mid-7 figures or so* than the low- to mid- 6 figures I was previously assuming.
*to be clear, almost all of this is EV is in the high upside things, very few people make 7 figures working jobby jobs.