It seems like one of the main factors leading to your mistakes was the way ideas can get twisted as they are echoed through the community and the epistemic humility that turns into deference to experts. I especially resonated with this:
I did plenty of things just because they were ‘EA’ without actually evaluating how much impact I would be having or how much I would learn.
As a university organizer, I see that nearly all of my experience with EA so far is not “doing” EA, but only learning about it. Not making impact estimates myself and then comparing to experts, but being anchored to experts’ answers from the start. It’s very much like university. You learn the common arguments and “right” answers, and even though you’re encouraged to discuss and disagree, everyone pretty much knows what the teacher or facilitator wants you to say.
I like your plans to further consider what you think about how to help others best and your own cause prioritization. That’s what I’m trying to do right now too :)
But I’m curious about why neither of us did this earlier. EAs often say they want you to figure things out for yourself, but there is also so much deference and respect towards the experts that I think makes it scary to say what you actually think, when everyone has a pretty good idea of what you’re supposed to think, and how epistemically humble we should be.
Do you have any thoughts on how to better encourage people to build their own views in EA? Or what would have made your past self do that?
Thanks for writing this post :)
It seems like one of the main factors leading to your mistakes was the way ideas can get twisted as they are echoed through the community and the epistemic humility that turns into deference to experts. I especially resonated with this:
As a university organizer, I see that nearly all of my experience with EA so far is not “doing” EA, but only learning about it. Not making impact estimates myself and then comparing to experts, but being anchored to experts’ answers from the start. It’s very much like university. You learn the common arguments and “right” answers, and even though you’re encouraged to discuss and disagree, everyone pretty much knows what the teacher or facilitator wants you to say.
I like your plans to further consider what you think about how to help others best and your own cause prioritization. That’s what I’m trying to do right now too :)
But I’m curious about why neither of us did this earlier. EAs often say they want you to figure things out for yourself, but there is also so much deference and respect towards the experts that I think makes it scary to say what you actually think, when everyone has a pretty good idea of what you’re supposed to think, and how epistemically humble we should be.
Do you have any thoughts on how to better encourage people to build their own views in EA? Or what would have made your past self do that?