A challenge for long-termists is a lack of feedback loops. It’s pretty difficult to tell if and how things are going to affect the long-term future, and so pretty difficult to tell what valuable work looks like. In the absence of feedback from the world, people will use feedback from others to determine whether their work is valuable. Plausibly this means that longtermism will be more susceptible to groupthink than neartermism.
Jealousy
Sometimes I feel jealous (or some nearby emotion thing) in the EA community. Times when I feel like this:
Someone posts with an idea that I had on the EA Forum.
Someone gets a job that I wanted.
Someone who is younger than me is doing things that are more important than the things I’m doing.
Some thoughts
My guess is that this is related to an underlying feeling of scarcity, or insecurity. When I feel more secure as an EA, whatever that means, I’m more likely to celebrate others successes and take joy in them, rather than feel jealous.
Often the jealousy comes with some sense of ‘that could have been me/ I could have done that, if only I… ’. I don’t feel jealous of Nick Bostrom—I never could have been Nick Bostrom but can feel jealous when there’s something that feels like I could have done /had but don’t.
If this is related to some sense of scarcity, what’s the thing that feels scarce? Maybe something like status, or being seen as doing valuable work by others (in particular people that I and others see as doing valuable work).
Noticing instances of feeling jealous makes me a bit more suspicious of my motivations for doing EA things.
Why do people overwork?
It seems to me that:
EAs will say things like—EA is a marathon not a sprint, it’s important to take care of your mental health, you can be more effective if you’re happier, working too much is counterproductive…
But also, it seems like a lot of EAs (at least people I know) are workaholics, work on weekends and take few holidays, sometimes feel burnt out…
Overall, it seems like there’s a discrepancy between what people say about eg. the importance of not overworking and what people do eg. overwork. Is that the case? Why?
I wouldn’t measure overwork in hours (hours worked per week / 40): instead it’s measured in spoons (hours worked / capacity for sustainable hours). When I work on things I love and think important, and when I am being suitably rewarded, and when I have the gross fortune to have the rest of my life all be in order, it is possible to work well every day, to “rest in motion”.
(Form warning: yes in practice many people use more spoons than they have and they generate social feedback towards more work which needs active effort to stop from spiralling into damage.)
Agree about the first one—see here for one antidote.
Another feature which has so far cut against longtermist groupthink is that you had to be pretty weird to spend your life thinking about these things (unless you were an SF writer). That one is leaving us though.
Misc thoughts
Longtermism and feedback loops
A challenge for long-termists is a lack of feedback loops. It’s pretty difficult to tell if and how things are going to affect the long-term future, and so pretty difficult to tell what valuable work looks like. In the absence of feedback from the world, people will use feedback from others to determine whether their work is valuable. Plausibly this means that longtermism will be more susceptible to groupthink than neartermism.
Jealousy
Sometimes I feel jealous (or some nearby emotion thing) in the EA community. Times when I feel like this:
Someone posts with an idea that I had on the EA Forum.
Someone gets a job that I wanted.
Someone who is younger than me is doing things that are more important than the things I’m doing.
Some thoughts
My guess is that this is related to an underlying feeling of scarcity, or insecurity. When I feel more secure as an EA, whatever that means, I’m more likely to celebrate others successes and take joy in them, rather than feel jealous.
Often the jealousy comes with some sense of ‘that could have been me/ I could have done that, if only I… ’. I don’t feel jealous of Nick Bostrom—I never could have been Nick Bostrom but can feel jealous when there’s something that feels like I could have done /had but don’t.
If this is related to some sense of scarcity, what’s the thing that feels scarce? Maybe something like status, or being seen as doing valuable work by others (in particular people that I and others see as doing valuable work).
Noticing instances of feeling jealous makes me a bit more suspicious of my motivations for doing EA things.
Why do people overwork?
It seems to me that:
EAs will say things like—EA is a marathon not a sprint, it’s important to take care of your mental health, you can be more effective if you’re happier, working too much is counterproductive…
But also, it seems like a lot of EAs (at least people I know) are workaholics, work on weekends and take few holidays, sometimes feel burnt out…
Overall, it seems like there’s a discrepancy between what people say about eg. the importance of not overworking and what people do eg. overwork. Is that the case? Why?
I wouldn’t measure overwork in hours (hours worked per week / 40): instead it’s measured in spoons (hours worked / capacity for sustainable hours). When I work on things I love and think important, and when I am being suitably rewarded, and when I have the gross fortune to have the rest of my life all be in order, it is possible to work well every day, to “rest in motion”.
(Form warning: yes in practice many people use more spoons than they have and they generate social feedback towards more work which needs active effort to stop from spiralling into damage.)
Agree about the first one—see here for one antidote.
Another feature which has so far cut against longtermist groupthink is that you had to be pretty weird to spend your life thinking about these things (unless you were an SF writer). That one is leaving us though.