Your post really struck a chord with me. Your style of writing so perfectly captures the problematic mindset many EA’s (sorta including myself) have adopted. The way of treating EA writing as holy truths made by people so unbelievably smart that they must have taken into consideration every conceivable thing annoys me greatly. These gospel truths are not written by prophets but by people about as smart as yourselves! 80,000 hours is a good guideline for how to think of your career, nothing more. They cannot possibly know what is the best career for you. You are your own person, think for yourself!
Just because (insert EA authority) wrote it, doesn’t make it so. And more importantly, just because (insert EA authority) didn’t write about it, doesn’t make it not so. There’s so many great opportunities around where the only reason nobody is talking about it is because nobody but you has thought about it.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not criticizing 80k, nor any other EA authority. The reason we got here in the first place is exactly because they did such a great job. I’m criticizing us for making it out to be more than it is. For the love of god lets end this herd mentality of flocking around whatever (insert EA authority) last decided most valuable and start making our own choices!
You don’t need anyone’s acknowledgement to start working on what you think is important. MIRI was founded by someone with no high school diploma! Want to help with AI research? Start another MIRI, now there’s room for twice as many MIRI-style researchers.
An organization like red-cross may not be hip with the tribe we hope to impress, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a large impact. Explore the opportunities unique to you, even if they don’t show up high on the 80k ladder of ‘generally impactful’.
Your post really struck a chord with me. Your style of writing so perfectly captures the problematic mindset many EA’s (sorta including myself) have adopted. The way of treating EA writing as holy truths made by people so unbelievably smart that they must have taken into consideration every conceivable thing annoys me greatly. These gospel truths are not written by prophets but by people about as smart as yourselves! 80,000 hours is a good guideline for how to think of your career, nothing more. They cannot possibly know what is the best career for you. You are your own person, think for yourself!
Just because (insert EA authority) wrote it, doesn’t make it so. And more importantly, just because (insert EA authority) didn’t write about it, doesn’t make it not so. There’s so many great opportunities around where the only reason nobody is talking about it is because nobody but you has thought about it.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not criticizing 80k, nor any other EA authority. The reason we got here in the first place is exactly because they did such a great job. I’m criticizing us for making it out to be more than it is. For the love of god lets end this herd mentality of flocking around whatever (insert EA authority) last decided most valuable and start making our own choices!
You don’t need anyone’s acknowledgement to start working on what you think is important. MIRI was founded by someone with no high school diploma! Want to help with AI research? Start another MIRI, now there’s room for twice as many MIRI-style researchers.
An organization like red-cross may not be hip with the tribe we hope to impress, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a large impact. Explore the opportunities unique to you, even if they don’t show up high on the 80k ladder of ‘generally impactful’.
Carpe diem!