Eh, I’m just pretty happy to claim that many contests can in fact push people to do more valuable things with their time than they would have done otherwise. It’s not that hard to think of considerations that most EAs haven’t thought about.
Also, by this logic, should we also not have any posts that give advice to EAs? After all, they might pull EAs towards following that advice, even when that’s not altruistically / impartially best.
Maybe the idea is that once there’s money involved, it is individually rational for EAs to pursue the money from contests instead of doing what is best, and this is community-irrational? That seems surprising; if that were the situation, then why aren’t the EAs just pursuing a normal job which would get more money?
Maybe the idea is that it isn’t the money, it’s the prestige from the contest that’s motivating? That seems plausible.
Maybe the idea is that EAs can just ignore advice if it’s bad, but they will irrationally be more persuaded when there’s money and prestige attached (as in a contest)? That also seems plausible.
Okay, I’m more convinced of distortionary effects, though I’m still pretty keen on “yeah it’s not hard to find cases where individual EAs could do better, because you thought of a consideration that they didn’t”.
My guess is that most entrants would benefit from reflecting for 1-10 hours, and a smaller subset would benefit from reflecting for 10-100 hours.
For this contest I was most compelled by the benefits to other organizers, and for that I think I would be a lot more excited about the 10-100 hour reflections.
Eh, I’m just pretty happy to claim that many contests can in fact push people to do more valuable things with their time than they would have done otherwise. It’s not that hard to think of considerations that most EAs haven’t thought about.
Also, by this logic, should we also not have any posts that give advice to EAs? After all, they might pull EAs towards following that advice, even when that’s not altruistically / impartially best.
Maybe the idea is that once there’s money involved, it is individually rational for EAs to pursue the money from contests instead of doing what is best, and this is community-irrational? That seems surprising; if that were the situation, then why aren’t the EAs just pursuing a normal job which would get more money?
Maybe the idea is that it isn’t the money, it’s the prestige from the contest that’s motivating? That seems plausible.
Maybe the idea is that EAs can just ignore advice if it’s bad, but they will irrationally be more persuaded when there’s money and prestige attached (as in a contest)? That also seems plausible.
Okay, I’m more convinced of distortionary effects, though I’m still pretty keen on “yeah it’s not hard to find cases where individual EAs could do better, because you thought of a consideration that they didn’t”.
For this contest I was most compelled by the benefits to other organizers, and for that I think I would be a lot more excited about the 10-100 hour reflections.