(It also seems quite possible that people closer to being in the basin will tend to do more useful work than people further from it, although Iām not sure about that.)
Is part of why youāre not sure about that related to your observation in this post that someone becoming more āstrategicā without becoming more āvirtuousā could substantially increase the expected harm they do, since it might move them towards working in higher-leverage domains? In this case, the idea might be one of the following:
People might move closer to the basin via becoming more truth-seeking and/āor self-aware, but without becoming more altruistic. If so, they might then start acting in higher-leverage domains, but act in overly self-interested, short-sighted, uncooperative, etc. ways, causing problems
People might move closer to the basin via becoming more altruistic, but without becoming more truth-seeking or self-aware. Such people might have had a decent chance of making blunders regardless of what domains they worked in. But their increased altruism means those people are more likely to be acting in high-leverage domains or acting in a way perceived as ārepresentativeā of some important ideas/āmovement, so the blunders are now more harmful.
Thanks, I found this post interesting.
Is part of why youāre not sure about that related to your observation in this post that someone becoming more āstrategicā without becoming more āvirtuousā could substantially increase the expected harm they do, since it might move them towards working in higher-leverage domains? In this case, the idea might be one of the following:
People might move closer to the basin via becoming more truth-seeking and/āor self-aware, but without becoming more altruistic. If so, they might then start acting in higher-leverage domains, but act in overly self-interested, short-sighted, uncooperative, etc. ways, causing problems
People might move closer to the basin via becoming more altruistic, but without becoming more truth-seeking or self-aware. Such people might have had a decent chance of making blunders regardless of what domains they worked in. But their increased altruism means those people are more likely to be acting in high-leverage domains or acting in a way perceived as ārepresentativeā of some important ideas/āmovement, so the blunders are now more harmful.
Yes, thatās the kind of thing I had in the back of my mind as I wrote that.
I guess I actually think:
On average moving people further into the basin should lead to more useful work
Probably we can identify some regions/āinterventions where this is predictably not the case
Itās unclear how common such regions are