I’m going to try to explain here why I am suspicious of the need for this.
People who do things are not, in general, idea constrained from what I can tell. Lots of people have lots of ideas about what they could do and there are already people making arguments for and against these ideas in public forums. People who choose to act do so based in part of how these discussions of ideas influence their thinking, but filtered through the lens of experience at making stuff happen.
Additionally, we already have a lot of ideas people recognize as being worth implementing that no one is working on or work being done on them has not yet come to fruition. It doesn’t take long, relative to the effort that will be invested to do something, to read and think enough to decide what to do, so it seems more likely to me that on the margin we need more desire to do than more curation of ideas about what to do.
All this said, if you want to do something I think there is something to be done in terms of curating the list of ideas/projects you want to see people know about and promoting the existence of that list. Or writing about specific ideas/projects you think people should work on and trying to convince folks they should work on those. But an idea directory of the sort you propose sounds to me like a lot of make-work to see only slightly more clearly the landscape doers are already navigating.
While I completely see what you’re saying, at the risk of sounding obtuse, I think the opposite of your opener may be true.
“People who do things are not, in general, idea constrained”
The contrary of this statement may be the fundamental point of EA (or at least a variant of it): People who do things in general (outside of EA) tend to act on bad ideas. In fact, EA is more about the ideas underlying what we do than it is about the doing itself. Millions of affluent people are doing things (going to school, work, upgrading their cars and homes, giving to charity), without examining the underlying ideas. EA’s success is its ability to convert doers to adopt its ideas. It’s creating a pool of doers who use EA ideas instead of conventional wisdom.
Perhaps there are two classes of doers, those already in the EA community who “get it,” and those outside who are just plugging away at life. When I think of filling talent gaps, I think that can be filled by (A) EA community members developing skills, and (B) recruiting skilled people to join the community. Group A probably doesn’t need good ideas because they’ve already accepted the ideas of our favorite thinkers etc. The marginal benefit of even better ideas is small. Instead, group A is better off if it simply gets down to the hard work of growing talent. But group B is laboring under bad ideas, and for many, it might not take much at all to get them to substitute bad ideas for EA-ideas. My guess is that, to grow talent, it is easier to convert doers from group B than to optimize doers in group A (which is certainly not to say group A shouldn’t do the hard work of optimizing their talent).
There is an odd circularity here- I think I just argued myself out of my original stance. I seem to have just concluded that we shouldn’t focus on the ideas of the EA community (which was my original intention) and instead should focus on methods of recruiting.
Maybe I’m arguing that we should develop recruiting ideas?
Also- any suggestions for good formal discussions of the philosophy and sociology of ideas (beyond the slightly nauseating pop business literature)? “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson is excellent, but not philosophically rigorous.
You don’t need to have argued yourself out of the position. Here’s the thought: ideas are important. Evidence in this direction is EA coming along and showing people their previous ideas were bad. Continuing in the same line, unless we think we have all the best ideas already—which would be frighteningly arrogant—that suggests continuing to developing our ideas would be very useful. Hence working on ideas is still very important for those who, as you said, already “get it”.
Gworly is right that people aren’t lacking ideas. You (astupple) were right that they often lacking good ideas.
Further, on this:
It doesn’t take long, relative to the effort that will be invested to do something, to read and think enough to decide what to do, so it seems more likely to me that on the margin we need more desire to do than more curation of ideas about what to do
This is statement lots of philosophers, including those within EA, would disagree with. Indeed, the whole point of 80k is that your life is a long time and it’s fitting to spend a non-trivial period reflecting on how to do good.
Maybe I’m arguing that we should develop recruiting ideas?
Yep :-)
Also- any suggestions for good formal discussions of the philosophy and sociology of ideas (beyond the slightly nauseating pop business literature)? “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson is excellent, but not philosophically rigorous.
I don’t but I suspect some folks around here do. Talk to Malcolm Ocean maybe?
I’m going to try to explain here why I am suspicious of the need for this.
People who do things are not, in general, idea constrained from what I can tell. Lots of people have lots of ideas about what they could do and there are already people making arguments for and against these ideas in public forums. People who choose to act do so based in part of how these discussions of ideas influence their thinking, but filtered through the lens of experience at making stuff happen.
Additionally, we already have a lot of ideas people recognize as being worth implementing that no one is working on or work being done on them has not yet come to fruition. It doesn’t take long, relative to the effort that will be invested to do something, to read and think enough to decide what to do, so it seems more likely to me that on the margin we need more desire to do than more curation of ideas about what to do.
All this said, if you want to do something I think there is something to be done in terms of curating the list of ideas/projects you want to see people know about and promoting the existence of that list. Or writing about specific ideas/projects you think people should work on and trying to convince folks they should work on those. But an idea directory of the sort you propose sounds to me like a lot of make-work to see only slightly more clearly the landscape doers are already navigating.
While I completely see what you’re saying, at the risk of sounding obtuse, I think the opposite of your opener may be true.
“People who do things are not, in general, idea constrained”
The contrary of this statement may be the fundamental point of EA (or at least a variant of it): People who do things in general (outside of EA) tend to act on bad ideas. In fact, EA is more about the ideas underlying what we do than it is about the doing itself. Millions of affluent people are doing things (going to school, work, upgrading their cars and homes, giving to charity), without examining the underlying ideas. EA’s success is its ability to convert doers to adopt its ideas. It’s creating a pool of doers who use EA ideas instead of conventional wisdom.
Perhaps there are two classes of doers, those already in the EA community who “get it,” and those outside who are just plugging away at life. When I think of filling talent gaps, I think that can be filled by (A) EA community members developing skills, and (B) recruiting skilled people to join the community. Group A probably doesn’t need good ideas because they’ve already accepted the ideas of our favorite thinkers etc. The marginal benefit of even better ideas is small. Instead, group A is better off if it simply gets down to the hard work of growing talent. But group B is laboring under bad ideas, and for many, it might not take much at all to get them to substitute bad ideas for EA-ideas. My guess is that, to grow talent, it is easier to convert doers from group B than to optimize doers in group A (which is certainly not to say group A shouldn’t do the hard work of optimizing their talent).
There is an odd circularity here- I think I just argued myself out of my original stance. I seem to have just concluded that we shouldn’t focus on the ideas of the EA community (which was my original intention) and instead should focus on methods of recruiting.
Maybe I’m arguing that we should develop recruiting ideas?
Also- any suggestions for good formal discussions of the philosophy and sociology of ideas (beyond the slightly nauseating pop business literature)? “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson is excellent, but not philosophically rigorous.
You don’t need to have argued yourself out of the position. Here’s the thought: ideas are important. Evidence in this direction is EA coming along and showing people their previous ideas were bad. Continuing in the same line, unless we think we have all the best ideas already—which would be frighteningly arrogant—that suggests continuing to developing our ideas would be very useful. Hence working on ideas is still very important for those who, as you said, already “get it”.
Gworly is right that people aren’t lacking ideas. You (astupple) were right that they often lacking good ideas.
Further, on this:
This is statement lots of philosophers, including those within EA, would disagree with. Indeed, the whole point of 80k is that your life is a long time and it’s fitting to spend a non-trivial period reflecting on how to do good.
Yep :-)
I don’t but I suspect some folks around here do. Talk to Malcolm Ocean maybe?
Malcolm Ocean- fantastic! thanks!