I took a break from engaging with EA topics for like a month or two, and I think it noticeably improved my mental health and productivity, as debating here frequently was actually stressing me out a lot. Which is weird, because the stakes for me posting here are incredibly low: I’m pseudonymous, have no career or personal attachments to EA groups, and I’m highly skeptical that EA efforts will have any noticeable effect on the future of humanity. I can’t imagine how stressful these discussions are for people with the opposite positions!
I still have plenty of ideas I want to write up, so I’m not going anywhere, but I’ll try to be more considered in where I put my effort.
You are a good and smart commenter, but that is probably generally a sign that you could be doing something more valuable with your time than posting on here. In your case though, that might not actually be true, since you also represent a dissenting perspective that makes things a bit less of an echo chamber on topics like AI safety, and it’s possible that does have some marginal influence on what orgs and individuals actually do.
As a pseudonymous poster with a non-EA job who created his account a few months after yours, I’ve needed to update on the value of prolonged debate on at least meta topics. There was a lot of going in late 2022 / early 2023 where I think having outside voices deeply engaging with debates in the comments was of significant value. I think that is considerably less true for, e.g., the whole Nonlinear controversy in late 2023 / early 2024.
I actually don’t really debate on the forums for this very reason. I too am EA-adjacent (yes I’m aware that’s a bit of a meme!) and do not work in the EA sphere. I share insights and give feedback, but generally if people disagree I’m happy to leave it at that. I have a very stressful (non-EA) job and so rarely have the bandwidth for something that has no real upside like forum debate. I may make exceptions if someone seems super receptive, but I totally understand why you feel how you do.
I took a break from engaging with EA topics for like a month or two, and I think it noticeably improved my mental health and productivity, as debating here frequently was actually stressing me out a lot. Which is weird, because the stakes for me posting here are incredibly low: I’m pseudonymous, have no career or personal attachments to EA groups, and I’m highly skeptical that EA efforts will have any noticeable effect on the future of humanity. I can’t imagine how stressful these discussions are for people with the opposite positions!
I still have plenty of ideas I want to write up, so I’m not going anywhere, but I’ll try to be more considered in where I put my effort.
You are a good and smart commenter, but that is probably generally a sign that you could be doing something more valuable with your time than posting on here. In your case though, that might not actually be true, since you also represent a dissenting perspective that makes things a bit less of an echo chamber on topics like AI safety, and it’s possible that does have some marginal influence on what orgs and individuals actually do.
As a pseudonymous poster with a non-EA job who created his account a few months after yours, I’ve needed to update on the value of prolonged debate on at least meta topics. There was a lot of going in late 2022 / early 2023 where I think having outside voices deeply engaging with debates in the comments was of significant value. I think that is considerably less true for, e.g., the whole Nonlinear controversy in late 2023 / early 2024.
Debating still takes time and energy which reduces the time and energy available elsewhere.
I actually don’t really debate on the forums for this very reason. I too am EA-adjacent (yes I’m aware that’s a bit of a meme!) and do not work in the EA sphere. I share insights and give feedback, but generally if people disagree I’m happy to leave it at that. I have a very stressful (non-EA) job and so rarely have the bandwidth for something that has no real upside like forum debate. I may make exceptions if someone seems super receptive, but I totally understand why you feel how you do.