Hmm at the (strong) danger of selecting too much on traits that I think I or my friends are likely to have, rather than predictors of actual expected impact:
enjoyment of rationalist-y writing
vegetarianism or other predictors of moral choices, particularly at an unusually young age
though I think an increasingly high percentage of young liberals are vegetarians these days, so it’s probably a weaker signal
preference for utilitarianism-like thinking
preference for analytic philosophy in general
high general cognitive ability
International Math (or Physics, or Informatics etc) Olympiad gold/silver medalists, or other signifiers of outlier ability
which universities have (impact- or engagement- weighted) EA alumni
evidence of wanting to/being able to think from the perspective of others, e.g. debate/philosophy club
I thought Joseph was trying to identify proxies that you could easily measure at the university level, e.g., by collecting stats from university webpages. Some of the proxies you mention—e.g., “enjoyment of rationalist-y writing”—don’t seem to fit this goal, as they seem more targeted to the individual (or are just not already collected and reported at the university level). Granted, some such as IMO medalists and EA alumni representation do seem amenable to such analysis, although the latter seems like it would be a very laggy-metric.
Something like “existence of and participation in speech & debate clubs and related extracurriculars (e.g., ethics bowl, Model UN, Mock Trial)” seems like it would be worth looking into as a candidate.
I agree that it is pretty sloppy/rough. Can you share any suggestions for better proxies?
Hmm at the (strong) danger of selecting too much on traits that I think I or my friends are likely to have, rather than predictors of actual expected impact:
enjoyment of rationalist-y writing
vegetarianism or other predictors of moral choices, particularly at an unusually young age
though I think an increasingly high percentage of young liberals are vegetarians these days, so it’s probably a weaker signal
preference for utilitarianism-like thinking
preference for analytic philosophy in general
high general cognitive ability
International Math (or Physics, or Informatics etc) Olympiad gold/silver medalists, or other signifiers of outlier ability
which universities have (impact- or engagement- weighted) EA alumni
evidence of wanting to/being able to think from the perspective of others, e.g. debate/philosophy club
I thought Joseph was trying to identify proxies that you could easily measure at the university level, e.g., by collecting stats from university webpages. Some of the proxies you mention—e.g., “enjoyment of rationalist-y writing”—don’t seem to fit this goal, as they seem more targeted to the individual (or are just not already collected and reported at the university level). Granted, some such as IMO medalists and EA alumni representation do seem amenable to such analysis, although the latter seems like it would be a very laggy-metric.
Something like “existence of and participation in speech & debate clubs and related extracurriculars (e.g., ethics bowl, Model UN, Mock Trial)” seems like it would be worth looking into as a candidate.