Per others: This selection isnât really âleans towards a focus on longtermismâ, but rather âalmost exclusively focuses on longtermismâ: roughly any âobject levelâ cause which isnât longtermism gets a passing mention, whilst longtermism is the subject of 3â10 of the selection. Even some not-explicitly-longtermist inclusions (e.g. Tetlock, MacAskill, Greaves) âlean towardsâ longtermism either in terms of subject matter or affinity.
Despite being a longtermist myself, I think this is dubious for a purported âintroduction to EA as a wholeâ: EA isnât all-but-exclusively longtermist in either corporate thought or deed.
Were I a more suspicious sort, Iâd also find the âimpartialâ rationales offered for why non-longtermist things keep getting the short (if not pointy) end of the stick scarcely credible:
i) we decided to focus on our overall worldview and way of thinking rather than specific cause areas (we also didnât include a dedicated episode on biosecurity, one of our âtop problemsâ), and ii) both are covered in the first episode with Holden Karnofsky, and we prominently refer people to the Bollard and Glennerster interviews in our âepisode 0â, as well as the outro to Holdenâs episode.
The first episode with Karnofsky also covers longtermism and AIâat least as much as global health and animals. Yet this didnât stop episodes on the specific cause areas of longtermism (Ord) and AI (Christiano) being included. Ditto the instance of âentrepreneurship, independent thinking, and general creativityâ one wanted to highlight just-so-happens to be a longtermist intervention (versus, e.g. this).
Per others: This selection isnât really âleans towards a focus on longtermismâ, but rather âalmost exclusively focuses on longtermismâ: roughly any âobject levelâ cause which isnât longtermism gets a passing mention, whilst longtermism is the subject of 3â10 of the selection. Even some not-explicitly-longtermist inclusions (e.g. Tetlock, MacAskill, Greaves) âlean towardsâ longtermism either in terms of subject matter or affinity.
Despite being a longtermist myself, I think this is dubious for a purported âintroduction to EA as a wholeâ: EA isnât all-but-exclusively longtermist in either corporate thought or deed.
Were I a more suspicious sort, Iâd also find the âimpartialâ rationales offered for why non-longtermist things keep getting the short (if not pointy) end of the stick scarcely credible:
The first episode with Karnofsky also covers longtermism and AIâat least as much as global health and animals. Yet this didnât stop episodes on the specific cause areas of longtermism (Ord) and AI (Christiano) being included. Ditto the instance of âentrepreneurship, independent thinking, and general creativityâ one wanted to highlight just-so-happens to be a longtermist intervention (versus, e.g. this).