Open Thread: September 2021
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You could talk about how you found effective altruism, what causes you work on and care about, or personal details that arenât EA-related at all.
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Iâve been having some mixed feelings about some recent initiatives in the Forum.
These include things in the space of the creative fiction contest, posting humorous top level content and asking people to share memes.
I am having trouble articulating exactly what is causing my uneasiness. I think its something along the lines of âI use the EA Forum to stay up to date on research, projects and considerations about Effective Altruism. Fun content distracts from that experience, and makes it harder for the work I publish in the Forum to be taken seriouslyâ.
On the other hand, I do see the value of having friendly content around. It makes the community more approachable. And the last thing I would want is to gatekeep people out for wanting to have fun together. I love hanging out with EAs too!
I trust the leadership of the Forum to have thought about these and other considerations. But I am voicing my opinion in case there are more who also share this uneasiness, to see if we can pinpoint it and figure out what to do about it.
Things that I think would help mitigate my uneasiness:
Create a peer-reviewed forum on top of the EA Forum, which curates research/âthoughful content. An interface like the Alignment Forum /â LessWrong would work well for this.
Create a separate place of discourse (a Facebook group?) for fun content, perhaps linked somehow from the EA Forum.
Have the fun content be hidden by default, like personal posts, so people need to opt into it.
What do other people think? Do other people feel this way?
Thanks for voicing these concerns! Youâve articulated a not-uncommon point of view on how the Forum ought to be used, and one that we try to incorporate into our work alongside many other points of view.
Iâve heard some people express a desire for the Forum to look more like a peer-reviewed journal. Iâve heard even more express concerns in the opposite direction â that the site feels like it has a very high bar for engagement, and any content other than serious research seems suitable only for Facebook (many of those people are trying to use Facebook less or not at all).
Other people have told me that they just really enjoy creative writing, art, jokes, etc., and want the Forum to represent that side of EA culture. Sometimes, the creative work is a big part of what drew them to the movement in the first place.
I think that examples like âThe Fable of the Dragon-Tyrantâ show that more âcreativeâ EA content clearly has a place in the movement, and that weâd be better off with more stories of that quality. Hence, the writing contest.
Just as not all research on the Forum is as strong as e.g. that of Rethink Priorities, not all stories will be cultural touchstones that stand the test of time. Still, I think the gems are worth having a lot of rougher content show up.
The encouragement for people to share their work in public (rather than quietly submitting it through a form) is partly in response to feedback about the Forumâs âhigh barâ, and partly to encourage more representation for that side of EA culture. I want to encourage people to share their work and not worry as much about whether something âqualifiesâ to be here.
(Some of the Forumâs best posts have started with an author emailing me to say something like âI donât know if this is a good fit, but I figured I would checkâ. I donât know how many additional posts we miss because people give up without asking me.)
***
As for the Clickhole and meme posts â both of these happened as a result of my thinking about âEA artâ a bunch as I worked on the contest, but I understand that having everything appear back-to-back could create a sense of unease!
I donât expect this to be a rising trend past the time of the creative writing contest â this was just a chance for me to share a couple of things Iâd drafted or thought of long ago.
I think that humorous/âcreative posts have a place on the front page, which is explicitly about ârelatedness to EAâ rather than metrics of seriousness or âqualityâ. That said, the meme post now has negative karma notwithstanding my default vote, so people seem to agree that itâs not a good fit; Iâve moved it to personal blog given that feedback.
I still stand by the Clickhole post being a genuinely good piece on the importance of cause prioritization, and most people seemed to like it.
*****
Thanks for suggesting concrete actions! Here are my thoughts:
Are the Alignment Forum and LessWrong âpeer-reviewedâ in any sense that the Forum isnât? The former has limits on who can post in the first place, but that doesnât seem like the same thing. (I may be unaware of some peer-review policy on one or both sites, though.)
Weâve had some internal discussions about what the EA Forumâs equivalent(s) of the Alignment Forum might be, and itâs very possible that weâll eventually produce a space for curated research content. Weâre reaching the end of our current âForum yearâ (September 2020 - September 2021) and considering new initiatives we may launch for 2022; this is on the list of possibilities.
I like Facebook, but a lot of people really donât, and that site continues to be difficult to search, filter, etc. I think the Forum has useful features that people who like âfun contentâ should also be able to use.
More generally, we think of the Forumâs purpose as âthe center of EA discussion onlineâ. Not just research, but also community building, events, announcements, AMAs, short stories, and April Foolâs jokes. All of these things seem like they help communities grow and flourish.
That said, I understand the concern about whether it makes sense to have everything presented in a single feed. Thatâs why weâve been building up our tag infrastructure and encouraging people to use filters â rather than present everything to everyone, we think itâs better to let people choose what they want to see. But I donât think that has to mean separate websites.
Is this a better option than âshow this by default, and let people opt out of itâ?
Personal posts can literally be about anything, as long as they donât violate our rules. Humorous posts that arenât EA-related, or posts authors would prefer be less visible, are hidden by the default personal filter. Filtering out a subset of EA-related posts based on our assumption that most people donât want to see them seems like a bigger step.
For some context, hereâs a sample of what Iâve been working on recently for the Forum, outside of the creative writing contest:
Working to set up five new AMAs (uncertain how many will end up coming together) with serious thinkers
Presenting to the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative on the topic of âtaking your summer research project and posting it on the Forumâ, then helping lots of individual researchers (~10 so far) prepare to do so
Helping Holden Karnofsky crosspost his Cold Takes content to the Forum so that itâs available as soon as he publishes the blog versions
Continuing to help other people with content they submit for feedback (steady stream of 1-2 people per week)
Continuing to refine the Forumâs version of the EA Handbook (and serving as a facilitator for three live Virtual Program cohorts to get more input on how people experience the âofficialâ version of this material, which has helped me improve the Forum version)
Creating a PR FAQ for a new metrics feature that should inspire more sharing of âserious workâ by its authors, hopefully drawing more attention to it
Adding a lot more recent Forum content to CEAâs social media feeds, so that the best material (almost always serious work) reaches more readers. Weâd been on a social media hiatus until ~two months ago, but engagement since we returned has been great!
While the creative writing contest is very visible, the vast majority of my time (as the main person trying to solicit more content for the Forum) goes towards helping people with serious work, and promoting said work.
I realize this may not speak to your point about uneasiness â Iâm just sharing it for some context on the Forumâs overall trajectory and what CEA is trying to do with it.
I thought the Clickhole post was both funny, and a good illustration of how cause prioritization can be perceived by many people.
I agree with youâI generally come to the forum looking for more thoughtful content, and there are already several EA Facebook groups for which at least the meme post would have been more appropriate. I think the writing contest is probably fine though.
I think someone should offer a prize for thoughtful responses to the âMost Important Centuryâ series. I think itâs important for someone to point out flaws in the arguments since many people will be relying on it as their gateway to longtermist EA.
Our Mayo Clinic team featured Charity Entrepreneurship alumna and Giving What We Can member Dr. Lucia Coulter and the Lead Exposure Elimination Project on our blog several weeks ago.
Links here, for those interested!
Blog post
LinkedIn
Twitter
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Hey oh! Long time lurker, first time poster.
Finally got those nervous jitters out of the way today and actually published my first post (awaiting âfirst-post approvalâ), along with my bio/âthis. (It is indeed daunting to try to insert oneâs self into the EA community and make a good first impression.)
I first discovered EA through 80000 Hours back when I graduated uni and felt existential bewilderment (5 years ago and still feelinâ it of course). Then I came across ClearerThinking.org and eventually landed a gig with Spark Wave last year. I didnât get involved until EAGxVirtual2020 where I met amazing people through the âmatchmakingâ 1-on-1 video chats. (Big time game changer!)
Anyways, Iâm just a happy human who loves conversation, connection, creation, music, psychology, philosophy, and cereal. (As you can tell, I ask that you donât take me too seriously half the time. Itâll be a time and a half!)
Iâm here to discuss âflourishingâ (post on that coming in hot later this month) and to just meet you! (So stop on by, come thru, say hey, grab a slice of zza, kick off your shoes, let your hair down, and stay awhile. Stay stupendous.)
Hey David! Congratulations on publishing your first post :)
Hi! I am Jen Wilson. I am working on non-profit to help animals in another country and create a small sanctuary for them. I am here to know if anyone can guide me on laws or guidelines on the difference of running a non-profit in the US and in other country.
Welcome Jen!
Who is itâs main target? That is the moment I havenât clearly understood about EA.
We have a problem: extremely bad maintenance of farm animals.
We have three variables, and one of them is Importance.
And thereâs a catchâitâs not equally important for people and animals.
Most people on the earth do not actually care and do not experience any bad feelings about this problem, a lot of them do not even know about it. In fact, i think thereâs something like 2-3% of the population that are empathic and knowledgeable enough to get hurt by this problem.
Thus, this problem appears to be not even in the first of thousand of the most important. Bad feelings of fairly small percent of the population are not comparable to a ton of other hell that the world experiences.
The two last paragraphs have represented a fair evaluation of this problemâs Importance if EA is a concept that is focused on making peopleâs live better.
This problem, obviously, is much more important if we we are caring about animalsâ feelings.
So, the final question isâwhat is the actual priority of EA? People, or animals and nature? How can we can solve and prioritize any side of this kind of conflicts between menâs and wildlife interests and needs?
Is it not an egoistic actâto get everyoneâs attention to a problem that hurts just 2-3% of the population?
I think people who work in animal welfare, directly value the suffering or experiences of the animal.
I never thought about it before, but I guess there is value to reducing the emotional toll on people, however reducing animal suffering is the main motivation.
I donât know anyone who would really put a lot of weight or effort on reducing the human emotional cost of seeing animals suffer (itâs really sort of the opposite even).
The short answer is that EA has multiple âcause areasâ where it can do work. Many âcause areasâ are being funded and worked on at the same time.
Cause areas are things like global poverty, helping with diseases, animal welfare, or improving technology and the future of civilization.
In theory, itâs not clear thereâs really a conflict between any cause area, and in practice people are open and discuss new cause areas all the time.
If you are open to one cause area, you can work on that. If you have multiple, you can discuss which ones you want to work on, but this is a personal decision.
Long answer
The long answer is that this is a valid question and many people have tried to answer this.
Thereâs three answers below, that are âhigher resolutionâ and are probably all approximately true at the same time:
Resources are allocated with thoughtful heuristics
People have spent a lot of time using numbers and âscienceâ to try to answer this question.
Basically, if you tried to use reasoning and numbers, itâs not hard to come to the conclusion that one issue or cause area (animals, humans, or something more esoteric but potentially highly valuable) takes all of the attention and money.
Few EAs, even those who value just one âcause areaâ, would find this outcome acceptable. Indeed, itâs unusual to see any such effort to argue for/âagainst cause areas (well, besides, a single one). It probably doesnât even make sense to try to convince others that they are âwrongâ.
So, to allocate resources, the answer basically is to use heuristics to allocate a portion of funds to each cause area, generally to be slowly spent over many years. (This has implications, such as the value a marginal dollar must bring, that can be examined to feel if itâs ârightâ) .
This is more reasonable than it sounds, once you examine how basically any major decision is made, anywhere.
Also, the amount of money and projects can be overwhelming compared to the current activity in a space. This makes this heuristic process, with slow spending, tenable (as opposed to planning a giant project to use all the money in one go).
High quality institutional control
EA is currently driven by the donations of two people through one organization/âinstitution.
This institution drives cause areas and attention, in direct and indirect ways.
This particular institution appears to be extremely high quality, so I think its involvement is probably a good thing, maybe overwhelmingly so. By âhigh qualityâ, I think this includes âvirtueâ in general, and literally every other way itâs good to foster a movement, including being open and explaining itself, admitting changes in direction, and accepting new opinions.
I think there is a large supply of âwould be leadersâ, âmeta thoughtâ that produce communities of much lower quality and effectiveness. Because I think operational details and culture is deceptively difficult, without this institution, I think EA would resemble these other communities.
EA is a social movement and depends on historical factors/âinitial conditions
Something that I think confuses even people who spend a lot of time engaging with EA material, is that EA is not really quite a method to find cause areas and interventions. Itâs a social movement that has found several cause areas and interventions.
I think one key difference this perspective brings is that cause areas and new kinds of interventions are limited by the supply of high quality leadership, management and judgement, and somewhat less that they havenât been âdiscoveredâ or âresearchedâ, in the sense we could just write about it.
Another key difference is that the existing, found cause areas, are often influenced by historical reasons. So they arenât an absolute guide to whatâs should be done.
Profile pictures for EA Forum?
One of the reasons I like posting on Facebook is because it gives me plenty of opportunities to display my personality (e.g. profile picture, banner, friends, etc.). You might argue that it distracts from the content of the post, but⊠I donât think thatâs much of an effect? Iâd be more incentivised to interact with the forum if I could show more of myself here.
Some discussion about profile pictures for the Forum here
Hi. Iâm Helaman Aorangi Wilson, recently moved to New Zealand, still living with my (excellent) family, and Iâve been having trouble persuading the LessWrong community that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not, in fact, the Robot Antichrist.
In other news, Iâm a transhumanist who views his current body as a pilgrimage.
Those bits of eccentricity frontloaded, does anyone else have an interest in languages, hypertext fiction, and neural networks? Iâm hoping I can make an AI child that will love everyone and take care of us in our old age.