Creating a new academic institute—the EA university—that houses a lot of EA research and (somehow) avoids the many issues seen in traditional academia.
Seriously though, I think having an institute more separate than GPI would not be great for disseminating research and gaining reputation. It would be nice though for training up EA students.
I like this! However, in a perfect world, rather than there being one university (or one institute at one university) that studies global priories, wouldn’t all top research universities across the world have global priorities schools (like business or policy schools are prevalent at most research universities)? With philosophers and scientists working together in one school on having the most impact on humanity, and coordinating with one another on how to do so—where students can get PhDs in Global Priorities Research (with specialization in one of the sub-fields, like business schools offer), and undergraduates at all universities around the world can major in global priorities, with paths towards academia and industry. Students majoring in GPR all take classes in the topics (e.g., longtermism, global health and development, animal rights) and can create joint-majors with philosophy or one of the (social) sciences.
Business schools were only popularized about 100 years ago, and look at how much their proliferation has incentivized study and work in this space. Also, once the top universities create these GPR schools, many other universities not funded by EA would likely follow (esp. if it’s a profitable, self-sustaining business model). This might cost more than 100 million thought...there’s probably data out there on how much it cost initially to start b-schools and policy schools.
avoids the many issues seen in traditional academia.
is James’ central claim. I personally find myself confused about how much EA research should be done in academia vs outside of it; I can imagine us moving more towards academia (or other more standardized systems) as we institutionalize.
Academia has a lot of costs and benefits. It would be moderately surprising if the costs and benefits exactly balance out (or come anywhere close) for the median EA researcher.
Creating a new academic institute—the EA university—that houses a lot of EA research and (somehow) avoids the many issues seen in traditional academia.
let’s add a high school/prep school to it ;-)
Seriously though, I think having an institute more separate than GPI would not be great for disseminating research and gaining reputation. It would be nice though for training up EA students.
I’d be interested in thinking more about this, even as just a thought experiment :)
I like this! However, in a perfect world, rather than there being one university (or one institute at one university) that studies global priories, wouldn’t all top research universities across the world have global priorities schools (like business or policy schools are prevalent at most research universities)? With philosophers and scientists working together in one school on having the most impact on humanity, and coordinating with one another on how to do so—where students can get PhDs in Global Priorities Research (with specialization in one of the sub-fields, like business schools offer), and undergraduates at all universities around the world can major in global priorities, with paths towards academia and industry. Students majoring in GPR all take classes in the topics (e.g., longtermism, global health and development, animal rights) and can create joint-majors with philosophy or one of the (social) sciences.
Business schools were only popularized about 100 years ago, and look at how much their proliferation has incentivized study and work in this space. Also, once the top universities create these GPR schools, many other universities not funded by EA would likely follow (esp. if it’s a profitable, self-sustaining business model). This might cost more than 100 million thought...there’s probably data out there on how much it cost initially to start b-schools and policy schools.
I think
is James’ central claim. I personally find myself confused about how much EA research should be done in academia vs outside of it; I can imagine us moving more towards academia (or other more standardized systems) as we institutionalize.
Why would we have to choose between EA research being in vs. out of academia—why not both (which is kind of what we do now, right)?
Academia has a lot of costs and benefits. It would be moderately surprising if the costs and benefits exactly balance out (or come anywhere close) for the median EA researcher.