Thanks for this post! I always appreciate a pretty metaphor, and I generally agree that junior EAs should be less deferential and more ambitious. Maybe most readers will in fact mostly take away the healthy lesson of “don’t defer”, which would be great! But I worry a bit about the urgent tone of “act now, it’s all on you”, which I think can lead in some unhealthy directions.
To me, it felt like a missing mood within the piece was concern for the reader’s well-being. The concept of heroic responsibility is in some ways very beautiful and important to me, but I worry that it can very easily mess people up more than it causes them to do good. (Do heroic responsibility responsibly, kids.)
When you feel like there are no lifeguards, and drowning children are everywhere, it’s easy to exhaust yourself before you even get to the point of saving anyone at all. I’ve seen of people burn themselves out over projects that, while promising, were really not organized with their sustainable well-being in mind.
If I were to write a version of this piece that reflected my approach to doing good, maybe I’d try to find a different metaphor that framed it more as an iterated game, to make it more natural to say something about conserving your strength / nurturing yourself / marathon-not-a-sprint.
Some other comments I particularly resonated with: @levin’s point about negative side effects due to unilateralist uninformed action, and @VaidehiAgarwalla’s point about implicitly reflecting an Eliezerish view of AI risk. I think the latter is part of what triggered my worry about this post potentially crushing people under the weight of responsibility.
Thanks for this post! I always appreciate a pretty metaphor, and I generally agree that junior EAs should be less deferential and more ambitious. Maybe most readers will in fact mostly take away the healthy lesson of “don’t defer”, which would be great! But I worry a bit about the urgent tone of “act now, it’s all on you”, which I think can lead in some unhealthy directions.
To me, it felt like a missing mood within the piece was concern for the reader’s well-being. The concept of heroic responsibility is in some ways very beautiful and important to me, but I worry that it can very easily mess people up more than it causes them to do good. (Do heroic responsibility responsibly, kids.)
When you feel like there are no lifeguards, and drowning children are everywhere, it’s easy to exhaust yourself before you even get to the point of saving anyone at all. I’ve seen of people burn themselves out over projects that, while promising, were really not organized with their sustainable well-being in mind.
If I were to write a version of this piece that reflected my approach to doing good, maybe I’d try to find a different metaphor that framed it more as an iterated game, to make it more natural to say something about conserving your strength / nurturing yourself / marathon-not-a-sprint.
Some other comments I particularly resonated with: @levin’s point about negative side effects due to unilateralist uninformed action, and @VaidehiAgarwalla’s point about implicitly reflecting an Eliezerish view of AI risk. I think the latter is part of what triggered my worry about this post potentially crushing people under the weight of responsibility.