My sense is what people are missing is a set of social incentives to get started. Looking at any one of these, they feel overwhelming, they feel like they require skills that I don’t have. It feels like if I start working on it, then EITHER I’m blocking someone whose better qualified from working on it OR someone who’s better qualified will do it anyway and my efforts will be futile.
Or, in the case of research, my bad quality research will make it harder for people to find good quality research.
Or, in the case of something like “start one of the charities Givewell wants people to start”, it feels like… just, a LOT of work.
And… this is all true. Kind of. But it’s also true that the way people get good at things is by doing them. And I think it’s sort of necessary for people to throw themselves into projects they aren’t prepared for, as long as they can get tight feedback looks that enable them to improve.
I have half-formed opinions about what’s needed to resolve that, that can be summarized as “better triaged mentorship.” I’ll try to write up more detailed thoughts soon.
This is odd. Personally my reaction is that I want to get to a project before other people do. Does bad research really make it harder to find good research? This doesn’t seem like a likely phenomenon to me.
How could bad research not make it harder to find good research? When you’re looking for the research, you have to look through additional things before you find the good research, and good research is fairly costly to ascertain in the first place.
Thanks for doing this!
My sense is what people are missing is a set of social incentives to get started. Looking at any one of these, they feel overwhelming, they feel like they require skills that I don’t have. It feels like if I start working on it, then EITHER I’m blocking someone whose better qualified from working on it OR someone who’s better qualified will do it anyway and my efforts will be futile.
Or, in the case of research, my bad quality research will make it harder for people to find good quality research.
Or, in the case of something like “start one of the charities Givewell wants people to start”, it feels like… just, a LOT of work.
And… this is all true. Kind of. But it’s also true that the way people get good at things is by doing them. And I think it’s sort of necessary for people to throw themselves into projects they aren’t prepared for, as long as they can get tight feedback looks that enable them to improve.
I have half-formed opinions about what’s needed to resolve that, that can be summarized as “better triaged mentorship.” I’ll try to write up more detailed thoughts soon.
Please do! Have you gotten started yet? :-) #humancommitmentdevice
This is odd. Personally my reaction is that I want to get to a project before other people do. Does bad research really make it harder to find good research? This doesn’t seem like a likely phenomenon to me.
How could bad research not make it harder to find good research? When you’re looking for the research, you have to look through additional things before you find the good research, and good research is fairly costly to ascertain in the first place.