Thanks Max. I agree that there is a lot of ground covered here that isnât broken up into different dimensions and that it could have been better if broken up as such. I disagree that entirely undermines the core proposition that: (a) whether we like it or not we are getting more attention; (b) itâs particularly important to think carefully about our âshop frontsâ with that increased attention; and therefore (c) staying true to âEA as a questionâ instead of a particular set of conclusions is going to ultimately serve our goals better (this might be our biggest disagreement?).
Iâd be very interested to hear you unpack that you think the opposite of âeasier to get big with the âevidence and reasoningâ framingâ. This seems to be a pretty important crux.
Ah, I think I was actually a bit confused what the core proposition was, because of the different dimensions.
Hereâs what I think of your claims:
a) 100% agree, this is a very important consideration.
b) Agree that this is important. I think itâs also very important to make sure that our shop fronts are accurate, and that we donât importantly distort the real work that weâre doing (I expect you agree with this?).
c) I agree with this! Or at least, thatâs what Iâm focused on and want more of. (And Iâm also excited about people doing more cause-specific or community building to complement that/âreach different audiences.)
So maybe I agree with your core thesis!
How easy is it to get big with evidence and reasoning?
I want to distinguish a few different worlds:
We just do cause specific community building, or action-specific community building.
We do community building focused on âEA as a questionâ with several different causes. Our epistemics are decent but not amazing.
We do community building focused on âEA as a questionâ with several different causes. We are aiming for the epistemics of core members to be world class (like probably better than the average on this Forum, around the level that I see at some core EA organizations).
Iâm most excited about option 3. I think that the thing weâre trying to do is really hard and it would be easy for us to cause harm if we donât think carefully enough.
And then I think that weâre kind of just about at the level Iâd like to see for 3. As we grow, I naturally expect regression to the mean, because weâre adding new people who have had less exposure to this type of thinking and may be less inclined to it. And also because I think that groups tend to reason less well as they get older and bigger. So I think that you want to be really careful about growth, and you canât grow that quickly with this approach.
I wonder if you mean something a bit more like 2? Iâm not excited about that, but I agree that we could grow it much more quickly.
Iâm personally not doing 1, but Iâm excited about others trying it. I think that, at least for some causes, if youâre doing 1 you can drop the epistemics/âdeep understanding requirements, and just have a lot of people coordinate around actions. E.g. I think that you could build a community of people who are earning to give for charities, and deferring to GiveWell and OpenPhilanthropy and GWWC about where they give. I think that this thing could grow at >200%/âyear. (This is the thing that Iâm most excited about GWWC being.) Similarly, I think you could make a movement focused on ending global poverty based on evidence and reasoning that grows pretty quicklyâe.g. around lobbying governments to spend more on aid, and spend aid money more effectively. (I think that this approach basically doesnât work for pre-paradigmatic fields like AI safety, wild animal welfare, etc. though.)
Had a bit of time to digest overnight and wanted to clarify this a bit further.
Iâm very supportive of #3 including âepistemics of core members to be world classâ. But fear that trying to achieve #3 too narrowly (demographics, worldviews, engagement levels etc) might ultimately undermine our goals (putting more people off, leaving the core group without as much support, worldviews becoming too narrow and this hurts our epistemics, we donât create enough allies to get things we want to do done).
I think that nurturing the experience through each level of engagement from outsider to audience through to contributor and core while remaining a âbig tentâ (worldview and action diverse) will ultimately serve us better than focusing too much on just developing a world class core (I think remaining a âbig tentâ is a necessary precondition because the world class core wonât exist without diversity of ideas/âapproaches and the support network needed for this core to succeed).
Thanks Max. I agree that there is a lot of ground covered here that isnât broken up into different dimensions and that it could have been better if broken up as such. I disagree that entirely undermines the core proposition that: (a) whether we like it or not we are getting more attention; (b) itâs particularly important to think carefully about our âshop frontsâ with that increased attention; and therefore (c) staying true to âEA as a questionâ instead of a particular set of conclusions is going to ultimately serve our goals better (this might be our biggest disagreement?).
Iâd be very interested to hear you unpack that you think the opposite of âeasier to get big with the âevidence and reasoningâ framingâ. This seems to be a pretty important crux.
Ah, I think I was actually a bit confused what the core proposition was, because of the different dimensions.
Hereâs what I think of your claims:
a) 100% agree, this is a very important consideration.
b) Agree that this is important. I think itâs also very important to make sure that our shop fronts are accurate, and that we donât importantly distort the real work that weâre doing (I expect you agree with this?).
c) I agree with this! Or at least, thatâs what Iâm focused on and want more of. (And Iâm also excited about people doing more cause-specific or community building to complement that/âreach different audiences.)
So maybe I agree with your core thesis!
How easy is it to get big with evidence and reasoning?
I want to distinguish a few different worlds:
We just do cause specific community building, or action-specific community building.
We do community building focused on âEA as a questionâ with several different causes. Our epistemics are decent but not amazing.
We do community building focused on âEA as a questionâ with several different causes. We are aiming for the epistemics of core members to be world class (like probably better than the average on this Forum, around the level that I see at some core EA organizations).
Iâm most excited about option 3. I think that the thing weâre trying to do is really hard and it would be easy for us to cause harm if we donât think carefully enough.
And then I think that weâre kind of just about at the level Iâd like to see for 3. As we grow, I naturally expect regression to the mean, because weâre adding new people who have had less exposure to this type of thinking and may be less inclined to it. And also because I think that groups tend to reason less well as they get older and bigger. So I think that you want to be really careful about growth, and you canât grow that quickly with this approach.
I wonder if you mean something a bit more like 2? Iâm not excited about that, but I agree that we could grow it much more quickly.
Iâm personally not doing 1, but Iâm excited about others trying it. I think that, at least for some causes, if youâre doing 1 you can drop the epistemics/âdeep understanding requirements, and just have a lot of people coordinate around actions. E.g. I think that you could build a community of people who are earning to give for charities, and deferring to GiveWell and OpenPhilanthropy and GWWC about where they give. I think that this thing could grow at >200%/âyear. (This is the thing that Iâm most excited about GWWC being.) Similarly, I think you could make a movement focused on ending global poverty based on evidence and reasoning that grows pretty quicklyâe.g. around lobbying governments to spend more on aid, and spend aid money more effectively. (I think that this approach basically doesnât work for pre-paradigmatic fields like AI safety, wild animal welfare, etc. though.)
Had a bit of time to digest overnight and wanted to clarify this a bit further.
Iâm very supportive of #3 including âepistemics of core members to be world classâ. But fear that trying to achieve #3 too narrowly (demographics, worldviews, engagement levels etc) might ultimately undermine our goals (putting more people off, leaving the core group without as much support, worldviews becoming too narrow and this hurts our epistemics, we donât create enough allies to get things we want to do done).
I think that nurturing the experience through each level of engagement from outsider to audience through to contributor and core while remaining a âbig tentâ (worldview and action diverse) will ultimately serve us better than focusing too much on just developing a world class core (I think remaining a âbig tentâ is a necessary precondition because the world class core wonât exist without diversity of ideas/âapproaches and the support network needed for this core to succeed).
Happy to chat more about this.
Thanks for clarifying! Not much to add now right this moment other than to say that I appreciate you going into detail about this.