Intellectual movements tend to develop by building upon the work of the previous generation and rejecting some of its foundational assumptions. We’d be keen to see an experiment to accelerate this. We’d suggest that the first step would be to identify the assumptions that are underlying EA or specific EA cause areas or specific EA strategies and try to figure out when these break. The project would then focus on those that are most likely to be false, particularly those which would be high impact if false. Efforts would then be made to think through whether or not these assumptions are actually true and what it’d mean for EA if they were false. The project might find itself naturally splitting into a few different subgroups depending on the assumptions that they bring to the table.
The project should mostly consistent of young up and coming EAs rather than EAs who are part of the “establishment” and who already have a platform. More experienced EAs should be involved at later stages of the process, but including them too soon may prevent people considering ideas outside of the current paradigm.
EA from the ground up
Effective Altruism
Intellectual movements tend to develop by building upon the work of the previous generation and rejecting some of its foundational assumptions. We’d be keen to see an experiment to accelerate this. We’d suggest that the first step would be to identify the assumptions that are underlying EA or specific EA cause areas or specific EA strategies and try to figure out when these break. The project would then focus on those that are most likely to be false, particularly those which would be high impact if false. Efforts would then be made to think through whether or not these assumptions are actually true and what it’d mean for EA if they were false. The project might find itself naturally splitting into a few different subgroups depending on the assumptions that they bring to the table.
The project should mostly consistent of young up and coming EAs rather than EAs who are part of the “establishment” and who already have a platform. More experienced EAs should be involved at later stages of the process, but including them too soon may prevent people considering ideas outside of the current paradigm.