Thanks Vasco! Much appreciated. I really appreciate your comment, and you’re not the first one who said it.
I’m going to post a blog update next month, and I’ll try to post some updates going forward after that.
I try to make sure I have enough independence from EAs that I can speak my own mind without having to change my views or how I say things, or what I assume as background and so on. That means I don’t usually want to directly post to the EA Forum, but I’d be thrilled if someone else wanted to crosspost some/any/all posts.
Often, to be honest, it goes the other way. The average engaged EA knows a tremendous amount about EA, whereas many educated readers (including academics, who are another key part of my audience) know relatively little.
I guess one key audience of mine is academic philosophers. This audience often wants to see discussions of philosophical issues in population ethics, decision theory, and the like at a level that assumes quite a high level of background (often, alas, more than I have!).
I think in practice I often don’t provide the second audience (academics, especially philosophers) with as much content as I’d like for them, and I’m trying to do what I can to grow my audience a bit more evenly.
I don’t think either of these should really be a barrier to posting on the forum. There is a lot of introductory content here that restates what people already know—they can always just skip over those sections—and likewise there is a lot of technical material that is inaccessible to the median reader—and that is also fine!
Thanks Vasco! Much appreciated. I really appreciate your comment, and you’re not the first one who said it.
I’m going to post a blog update next month, and I’ll try to post some updates going forward after that.
I try to make sure I have enough independence from EAs that I can speak my own mind without having to change my views or how I say things, or what I assume as background and so on. That means I don’t usually want to directly post to the EA Forum, but I’d be thrilled if someone else wanted to crosspost some/any/all posts.
David
Is there any particular background you expect your readers to have that typical EA readers lack?
Often, to be honest, it goes the other way. The average engaged EA knows a tremendous amount about EA, whereas many educated readers (including academics, who are another key part of my audience) know relatively little.
I guess one key audience of mine is academic philosophers. This audience often wants to see discussions of philosophical issues in population ethics, decision theory, and the like at a level that assumes quite a high level of background (often, alas, more than I have!).
I think in practice I often don’t provide the second audience (academics, especially philosophers) with as much content as I’d like for them, and I’m trying to do what I can to grow my audience a bit more evenly.
I don’t think either of these should really be a barrier to posting on the forum. There is a lot of introductory content here that restates what people already know—they can always just skip over those sections—and likewise there is a lot of technical material that is inaccessible to the median reader—and that is also fine!