Ah, good point that we should distinguish the discourse from the behaviours, and that what I said is clearer for the discourse than for the behaviours. I actually intended those sentences to just be about the discourse, but I didn’t make that clear. (I’ve now edited those sentences.)
Also, whether people’s discourse is at an appropriate point is probably less decision-relevant than whether their actions are, because:
it might be more worthwhile to try to push their actions towards the appropriate balance than to push their discourse towards the appropriate balance
we might want to oversteer one way or the other to compensate for what other people are doing (and this is somewhat less true regarding what people are saying)
Unfortunately, I find it very hard to say whether EAs’ actions are, in aggregate, overemphasising “direct work now”, overemphasising punting, or striking roughly the right balance. (Alternative terms would be “too urgent” vs “too patient” vs roughly right.) This is because I don’t have a strong sense of what balance EAs are currently striking or of what balance they should be striking. (Though I’ve found your work helpful on the latter point.)
Also, I realise now that I’m basing my assessment of EA’s discourse primarily on what I see on the forum and what I hear from the EAs I speak to, who are mostly highly engaged. This probably gives me a misleading picture, as ideas probably diffuse faster to these groups than to EAs in general.
Ah, good point that we should distinguish the discourse from the behaviours, and that what I said is clearer for the discourse than for the behaviours. I actually intended those sentences to just be about the discourse, but I didn’t make that clear. (I’ve now edited those sentences.)
Also, whether people’s discourse is at an appropriate point is probably less decision-relevant than whether their actions are, because:
it might be more worthwhile to try to push their actions towards the appropriate balance than to push their discourse towards the appropriate balance
we might want to oversteer one way or the other to compensate for what other people are doing (and this is somewhat less true regarding what people are saying)
Unfortunately, I find it very hard to say whether EAs’ actions are, in aggregate, overemphasising “direct work now”, overemphasising punting, or striking roughly the right balance. (Alternative terms would be “too urgent” vs “too patient” vs roughly right.) This is because I don’t have a strong sense of what balance EAs are currently striking or of what balance they should be striking. (Though I’ve found your work helpful on the latter point.)
Also, I realise now that I’m basing my assessment of EA’s discourse primarily on what I see on the forum and what I hear from the EAs I speak to, who are mostly highly engaged. This probably gives me a misleading picture, as ideas probably diffuse faster to these groups than to EAs in general.