Larissa from Leverage Research here. I think there might be an interesting discussion to be had about the relationship between feedback loops, external communication (engaging with your main external audiences), and public communication (trying to communicate ideas to the wider public).
For a lot of the history of scientific developments, sharing research, let alone widely distributing it was expensive and rare. Early discoveries in the history of electricity, for example, were nonetheless still made, often by researchers who shared little until they had a complete theory, or a new instrument to display. Often the feedback loops were simply direct engagement with the phenomena itself. Only in more recent history has it become cheap and easy enough to widely share research such that this has become the norm. Similarly, as a couple of people have mentioned in the comments, there are more recent examples of groups that have done great research while having little external engagement: Lockheed Martin and the Manhattan Project being two well-known examples.
This suggests that it is feasible to have feedback loops while doing little external communication of any kind. During Leverage 1.0[1] people relied more on feedback from their own experiences, interactions with teammates’ experiences and views, workshops and coaching.
That said, we do believe (for reasons independent of research feedback loops) that it was a mistake to not do more external communication in the past, which is why this is something Leverage Research has focused on since 2019. More recently, we have also come to think that it is also important to try to communicate to the wider public (in ways that can be broadly understood) as opposed to just your core audience or peer group. One reason for this is that if projects are only communicated about, and criticisms only accepted in, the language of the particular group that developed them, it’s easy for blindspots to remain until it is too late. (I recommend Glen Weyl’s “Why I’m Not A Technocrat” for a more detailed treatment of this topic.)
For anyone interested in some of our other reflections on public engagement, I recommend reading our 2019-2020 annual report or our Experiences Inquiry Report. The former is Leverage Research’s first annual report since the re-organization in 2019, and one topic we discuss is our new focus on external engagement. The latter shares findings from our inquiry last year into the experiences of former collaborators during Leverage 1.0. To see our engagement efforts today, I recommend checking out our website, subscribing to our newsletter, or following us on Twitter or Medium.
For those interested in the exploratory psychology research Jeff mentions, we recommend reading our write-up from earlier this year covering our 2017 − 2019 Intention Research and keeping an eye on our Exploratory Psychology Research Program page. We are currently working on two pieces: one on risks from introspection (we discuss this a bit on Twitter here), and one on Belief Reporting (an introspective tool developed during Leverage 1.0). We’re also thinking of sharing a few documents written pre-2019 that relate to introspection techniques. These would perhaps be less accessible for a wider audience unfamiliar with our introspective tools but may nonetheless be of interest to those who want to dive deeper on our introspective research. All of this will be added to our website when completed.
Finally, I just wanted to thank Jeff for engaging with us in a discussion of his post. Although we disagreed on some things and it ended up a lengthy discussion, I do feel like I came to understand a bit more of where the disagreement stemmed from, and the post was improved through the process. This seems valuable, so I would like to see that norm encouraged.
As context, “Leverage 1.0” is the somewhat clumsy term I introduced as a shorthand for the decentralized research collaboration between a few organizations from 2011 to 2019 that’s commonly referred to as “Leverage,” so as to distinguish it from Leverage Research the organization since 2019 which looks very different.
Do you have recommendations for the most enlightening concepts, models, or data produced by Leverage that’s not been filtered for public sensibilities? I want to efficiently evaluate whether I wish to dive deeper, and if a write-up is wastefwly optimised for professionalism, I take that as a strong signal against the likelihood that there’s significant value here.
I’m not interested in whether you produce research that I expect others will expect to be praised for praising me for approving of, I just want to know if it can help me understand stuff.
Larissa from Leverage Research here. I think there might be an interesting discussion to be had about the relationship between feedback loops, external communication (engaging with your main external audiences), and public communication (trying to communicate ideas to the wider public).
For a lot of the history of scientific developments, sharing research, let alone widely distributing it was expensive and rare. Early discoveries in the history of electricity, for example, were nonetheless still made, often by researchers who shared little until they had a complete theory, or a new instrument to display. Often the feedback loops were simply direct engagement with the phenomena itself. Only in more recent history has it become cheap and easy enough to widely share research such that this has become the norm. Similarly, as a couple of people have mentioned in the comments, there are more recent examples of groups that have done great research while having little external engagement: Lockheed Martin and the Manhattan Project being two well-known examples.
This suggests that it is feasible to have feedback loops while doing little external communication of any kind. During Leverage 1.0[1] people relied more on feedback from their own experiences, interactions with teammates’ experiences and views, workshops and coaching.
That said, we do believe (for reasons independent of research feedback loops) that it was a mistake to not do more external communication in the past, which is why this is something Leverage Research has focused on since 2019. More recently, we have also come to think that it is also important to try to communicate to the wider public (in ways that can be broadly understood) as opposed to just your core audience or peer group. One reason for this is that if projects are only communicated about, and criticisms only accepted in, the language of the particular group that developed them, it’s easy for blindspots to remain until it is too late. (I recommend Glen Weyl’s “Why I’m Not A Technocrat” for a more detailed treatment of this topic.)
For anyone interested in some of our other reflections on public engagement, I recommend reading our 2019-2020 annual report or our Experiences Inquiry Report. The former is Leverage Research’s first annual report since the re-organization in 2019, and one topic we discuss is our new focus on external engagement. The latter shares findings from our inquiry last year into the experiences of former collaborators during Leverage 1.0. To see our engagement efforts today, I recommend checking out our website, subscribing to our newsletter, or following us on Twitter or Medium.
For those interested in the exploratory psychology research Jeff mentions, we recommend reading our write-up from earlier this year covering our 2017 − 2019 Intention Research and keeping an eye on our Exploratory Psychology Research Program page. We are currently working on two pieces: one on risks from introspection (we discuss this a bit on Twitter here), and one on Belief Reporting (an introspective tool developed during Leverage 1.0). We’re also thinking of sharing a few documents written pre-2019 that relate to introspection techniques. These would perhaps be less accessible for a wider audience unfamiliar with our introspective tools but may nonetheless be of interest to those who want to dive deeper on our introspective research. All of this will be added to our website when completed.
Finally, I just wanted to thank Jeff for engaging with us in a discussion of his post. Although we disagreed on some things and it ended up a lengthy discussion, I do feel like I came to understand a bit more of where the disagreement stemmed from, and the post was improved through the process. This seems valuable, so I would like to see that norm encouraged.
As context, “Leverage 1.0” is the somewhat clumsy term I introduced as a shorthand for the decentralized research collaboration between a few organizations from 2011 to 2019 that’s commonly referred to as “Leverage,” so as to distinguish it from Leverage Research the organization since 2019 which looks very different.
Do you have recommendations for the most enlightening concepts, models, or data produced by Leverage that’s not been filtered for public sensibilities? I want to efficiently evaluate whether I wish to dive deeper, and if a write-up is wastefwly optimised for professionalism, I take that as a strong signal against the likelihood that there’s significant value here.
I’m not interested in whether you produce research that I expect others will expect to be praised for praising me for approving of, I just want to know if it can help me understand stuff.