This is a really good post! I often have difficulty trying to estimate my own illegible impact or that of other people. Here are some thoughts on the situation in general:
People should take more time to thank others who have helped them would increase the amount of legible impact in the movement. I was startled to hear someone attribute their taking a job to me more than a year after the fact; this led me to update appropriately on the value of a prior project, and other projects of that type.
It would be cool if people developed a habit of asking other people about impact they think they’d had. I’d love to see EA foster a culture where Bob can ask Alice “did our conversation last month have any detectable impact on you?”, and Alice can answer truthfully without hurting Bob’s feelings. (80,000 Hours and CFAR both seem to do a good job of hunting for evidence of illegible impact, though I’m concerned about the incentive fundraising organizations have to interpret this evidence in a way that overestimates their impact.)
Small actions matter!
I really appreciate people who take the time to vote on the Forum; very few posts get more than 50 votes, and many excellent posts only get a dozen or so. The more people vote, the better our sorting algorithm performs, and the more knowledge we (CEA) have about the types of content people find valuable. We have lots of other ways of trying to understand the Forum, of course, but data is data!
Likewise, I’m really happy whenever I see someone provide useful information about EA to another person on Twitter or Reddit, whether that’s “you might find this concept interesting” or “this claim you made about EA doesn’t seem right, here’s the best source I could find”. If EA-affiliated people are reliably kind and helpful in various corners of the internet, this seems likely to contribute both to movement growth and to a stronger reputation for EA among people who prefer kind, helpful communities (these are often very good people to recruit).
People should take more time to thank others who have helped them would increase the amount of legible impact in the movement. I was startled to hear someone attribute their taking a job to me more than a year after the fact; this led me to update appropriately on the value of a prior project, and other projects of that type.
Hey Aaron, this comment left an impression on me. I think I am (marginally) more likely to leave this feedback now.
This is a really good post! I often have difficulty trying to estimate my own illegible impact or that of other people. Here are some thoughts on the situation in general:
People should take more time to thank others who have helped them would increase the amount of legible impact in the movement. I was startled to hear someone attribute their taking a job to me more than a year after the fact; this led me to update appropriately on the value of a prior project, and other projects of that type.
It would be cool if people developed a habit of asking other people about impact they think they’d had. I’d love to see EA foster a culture where Bob can ask Alice “did our conversation last month have any detectable impact on you?”, and Alice can answer truthfully without hurting Bob’s feelings. (80,000 Hours and CFAR both seem to do a good job of hunting for evidence of illegible impact, though I’m concerned about the incentive fundraising organizations have to interpret this evidence in a way that overestimates their impact.)
Small actions matter!
I really appreciate people who take the time to vote on the Forum; very few posts get more than 50 votes, and many excellent posts only get a dozen or so. The more people vote, the better our sorting algorithm performs, and the more knowledge we (CEA) have about the types of content people find valuable. We have lots of other ways of trying to understand the Forum, of course, but data is data!
Likewise, I’m really happy whenever I see someone provide useful information about EA to another person on Twitter or Reddit, whether that’s “you might find this concept interesting” or “this claim you made about EA doesn’t seem right, here’s the best source I could find”. If EA-affiliated people are reliably kind and helpful in various corners of the internet, this seems likely to contribute both to movement growth and to a stronger reputation for EA among people who prefer kind, helpful communities (these are often very good people to recruit).
Hey Aaron, this comment left an impression on me. I think I am (marginally) more likely to leave this feedback now.
Thanks for letting me know! Your comment, in turn, makes me update a tiny amount on the value of leaving comments with this kind of advice :-)