I prefer to keep discussion on the object level, rather offering adverse impressions of one anotherâs behaviour (e.g. uncharitable, aggressive, censorious etc.)[1] with speculative diagnoses as to the root cause of these (âperhaps some poor experience with a cryonics enthusiastâ).
To recall the dialectical context: the implication upthread was a worry that the EA community (or EA leadership) are improperly neglecting the metal health cause area, perhaps due to (in practice) some anti-weirdness bias. To which my counter-suggestion was that maybe EA generally/âleaders thereof have instead made their best guess that the merits of this area isnât more promising than those cause areas they already attend to.
I accept that conditional on some recondite moral and empirical matters, mental health interventions look promising. Yet that does not distinguish mental health beyond many other candidate cause areas, e.g.:
Life extension/âcryonics
Pro-life advocacy/ânatural embryo loss mitigation
Immigration reform
Improving scientific norms
etc.
All generally have potentially large scale, sometimes neglected, but less persuasive tractability. In terms of some hypothetical dis aggregated EA resource (e.g. people, money), Iâd prefer it to go into one of the âbig threeâ than any of these other areas, as my impression is the marginal returns for any of these three is greater than one of those. In other senses there may not be such zero sum dynamics (i.e. conditional on Alice only wanting to work in mental health, better that she work in EA-style mental mental), yet I aver this doesnât really apply to which topics the movement gives relative prominence to (after all, one might hope that people switch from lower- to higher-impact cause areas, as I have attempted to do).
Of course, there remains value in exploration: if in fact EA writ large is undervaluing mental health, they would want to know about it and change tack What I hope would happen if I am wrong in my determination of mental health is that public discussion of the merits would persuade more and more people of the merits of this approach (perhaps Iâm incorrigible, hopefully third parties are not), and so it gains momentum from a large enough crowd of interested people it becomes its own thing with similar size and esteem to areas âwithin the movementâ. Inferring from the fact that this has not yet happened that the EA community is not giving a fair hearing is not necessarily wise.
[1]: I take particular exception to the accusations of censoriousness (from Plant) and wanting to âshut down discussionâ [from Plant and yourself]. In what possible world is arguing publicly on the internet a censorious act? I donât plot to ârun the mental health guys out of the EA movementâ, I donât work behind the scenes to talk to moderators to get rid of your contributions, I donât downvote remarks or posts on mental health, and so on and so forth for any remotely plausible âshutting down discussionâ behaviour. I leave adverse remarks I could make to this apophasis.
Iâm not seeing object-level arguments against mental health as an EA cause area. We have made some object-level arguments for, and Iâm working on a longer-form description of what QRI plans in this space. Look for more object-level work and meta-level organizing over the coming months.
Iâd welcome object-level feedback on our approaches. It didnât seem like your comments above were feedback-focused, but rather they seemed motivated by a belief that this was not âa good direction for EA energy to go relative to the other major ones.â I canât rule that out at this point. But I donât like seeing a community member just dishing out relatively content-free dismissiveness on people at a relatively early stage in trying to build something new. If you donât see any good interventions here, and donât think weâll figure out any good interventions, it seems much better to just let us fail, rather than actively try to pour cold water on us. If weâre on the verge of using lots of community resources on something that you know to be unworkable, please pour the cold water. But if your argument boils down to âthis seems like a bad idea, but I canât give any object-level reasons, but I really want people to know I think this is a bad ideaâ then Iâm not sure what value this interaction can produce.
But, that said, Iâd also like to apologize if Iâve come on too strong in this back-and-forth, or if you feel Iâve maligned your motives. I think you seem smart, honest, invested in doing good as you see it, and are obviously willing to speak your mind. I would love to channel this into making our ideas better! In trying to do something new, thereâs approximately a 100% chance weâll make a lot of mistakes. Iâd like to enlist your help in figuring out where the mistakes are and better alternatives. Or, if youâd rather preemptively write off mental health as a cause area, thatâs your prerogative. But weâre in this tent together, and although all the evidence I have suggests we have significantly different (perhaps downright dissonant) cognitive styles, perhaps we can still find some moral trade.
I prefer to keep discussion on the object level, rather offering adverse impressions of one anotherâs behaviour (e.g. uncharitable, aggressive, censorious etc.)[1] with speculative diagnoses as to the root cause of these (âperhaps some poor experience with a cryonics enthusiastâ).
To recall the dialectical context: the implication upthread was a worry that the EA community (or EA leadership) are improperly neglecting the metal health cause area, perhaps due to (in practice) some anti-weirdness bias. To which my counter-suggestion was that maybe EA generally/âleaders thereof have instead made their best guess that the merits of this area isnât more promising than those cause areas they already attend to.
I accept that conditional on some recondite moral and empirical matters, mental health interventions look promising. Yet that does not distinguish mental health beyond many other candidate cause areas, e.g.:
Life extension/âcryonics
Pro-life advocacy/ânatural embryo loss mitigation
Immigration reform
Improving scientific norms etc.
All generally have potentially large scale, sometimes neglected, but less persuasive tractability. In terms of some hypothetical dis aggregated EA resource (e.g. people, money), Iâd prefer it to go into one of the âbig threeâ than any of these other areas, as my impression is the marginal returns for any of these three is greater than one of those. In other senses there may not be such zero sum dynamics (i.e. conditional on Alice only wanting to work in mental health, better that she work in EA-style mental mental), yet I aver this doesnât really apply to which topics the movement gives relative prominence to (after all, one might hope that people switch from lower- to higher-impact cause areas, as I have attempted to do).
Of course, there remains value in exploration: if in fact EA writ large is undervaluing mental health, they would want to know about it and change tack What I hope would happen if I am wrong in my determination of mental health is that public discussion of the merits would persuade more and more people of the merits of this approach (perhaps Iâm incorrigible, hopefully third parties are not), and so it gains momentum from a large enough crowd of interested people it becomes its own thing with similar size and esteem to areas âwithin the movementâ. Inferring from the fact that this has not yet happened that the EA community is not giving a fair hearing is not necessarily wise.
[1]: I take particular exception to the accusations of censoriousness (from Plant) and wanting to âshut down discussionâ [from Plant and yourself]. In what possible world is arguing publicly on the internet a censorious act? I donât plot to ârun the mental health guys out of the EA movementâ, I donât work behind the scenes to talk to moderators to get rid of your contributions, I donât downvote remarks or posts on mental health, and so on and so forth for any remotely plausible âshutting down discussionâ behaviour. I leave adverse remarks I could make to this apophasis.
Iâm not seeing object-level arguments against mental health as an EA cause area. We have made some object-level arguments for, and Iâm working on a longer-form description of what QRI plans in this space. Look for more object-level work and meta-level organizing over the coming months.
Iâd welcome object-level feedback on our approaches. It didnât seem like your comments above were feedback-focused, but rather they seemed motivated by a belief that this was not âa good direction for EA energy to go relative to the other major ones.â I canât rule that out at this point. But I donât like seeing a community member just dishing out relatively content-free dismissiveness on people at a relatively early stage in trying to build something new. If you donât see any good interventions here, and donât think weâll figure out any good interventions, it seems much better to just let us fail, rather than actively try to pour cold water on us. If weâre on the verge of using lots of community resources on something that you know to be unworkable, please pour the cold water. But if your argument boils down to âthis seems like a bad idea, but I canât give any object-level reasons, but I really want people to know I think this is a bad ideaâ then Iâm not sure what value this interaction can produce.
But, that said, Iâd also like to apologize if Iâve come on too strong in this back-and-forth, or if you feel Iâve maligned your motives. I think you seem smart, honest, invested in doing good as you see it, and are obviously willing to speak your mind. I would love to channel this into making our ideas better! In trying to do something new, thereâs approximately a 100% chance weâll make a lot of mistakes. Iâd like to enlist your help in figuring out where the mistakes are and better alternatives. Or, if youâd rather preemptively write off mental health as a cause area, thatâs your prerogative. But weâre in this tent together, and although all the evidence I have suggests we have significantly different (perhaps downright dissonant) cognitive styles, perhaps we can still find some moral trade.
Best wishes, Mike