Thanks Mohammed—yes as a mostly-near-termist myself I agree with many your concerns as well. For this post though I was making an argument which assumes longtermist causes are by far the most important, but like you say there are plenty of other arguments that can be made if we don’t necessarily assume that as well.
I agree that as 80,000 hours is so influential and a “front door” to Effective Altruism, the site could mislead readers into thinking there is an official “EA position” on the best careers and causes—although 80,000 hours do say they are “part of the EA community” rather than actively claiming a leadership role.
And I really like the idea of having some discourse and disagreement on the site itself, that feels like a genuine and “EA” style way to go about things.
And thinking about your “condescending” comment, as well as the career example I listed, The “Problems many of our readers prioritise” could be easily interpreted as condescention as well. I don’t think 80,000 hours are trying to be condescending, but it is easy to interpret that way.
Thanks Mohammed—yes as a mostly-near-termist myself I agree with many your concerns as well. For this post though I was making an argument which assumes longtermist causes are by far the most important, but like you say there are plenty of other arguments that can be made if we don’t necessarily assume that as well.
I agree that as 80,000 hours is so influential and a “front door” to Effective Altruism, the site could mislead readers into thinking there is an official “EA position” on the best careers and causes—although 80,000 hours do say they are “part of the EA community” rather than actively claiming a leadership role.
And I really like the idea of having some discourse and disagreement on the site itself, that feels like a genuine and “EA” style way to go about things.
And thinking about your “condescending” comment, as well as the career example I listed, The “Problems many of our readers prioritise” could be easily interpreted as condescention as well. I don’t think 80,000 hours are trying to be condescending, but it is easy to interpret that way.