I think scale/scope is a pretty intuitive way of thinking about problems, which is I imagine why it’s part of the ITN framework. To my eye, the framework is successful because it reflects intuitive concepts like scale, so I don’t see too much of a coincidence here.
If Importance is all that matters, then I would expect these critics to be very interested in existential risks, but my impression is they are not. Similarly, I would be very surprised if they were dismissive of e.g. residential recycling, or US criminal justice, as being too small a scale an issue to warrant much concern.
This is a good point. I don’t see any dissonance with respect to recycling and criminal justice—recycling is (nominally) about climate change, and climate change is a big deal, so recycling is important when you ignore the degree to which it can address the problem; likewise with criminal justice. Still, you’re right that my “straw activist” would probably scoff at AI risk, for example.
I guess I’d say that the way of thinking I’ve described doesn’t imply an accurate assessment of problem scale, and since skepticism about the (relatively formal) arguments on which concerns about AI risk are based is core to the worldview, there’d be no reason for someone like this to accept that some of the more “out there” GCRs are GCRs at all.
Quite separately, there is a tendency among all activists (EAs included) to see convergence where there is none, and I think this goes a long way toward neutralizing legitimate but (to the activist) novel concerns. Anecdotally, I see this a lot—the proposition, for instance, that international development will come “along for the ride” when the U.S. gets its own racial justice house in order, or that the end of capitalism necessarily implies more effective global cooperation.
I don’t see any dissonance with respect to recycling and criminal justice—recycling is (nominally) about climate change, and climate change is a big deal, so recycling is important when you ignore the degree to which it can address the problem; likewise with criminal justice.
It seems a lot depends on how you group together things into causes then. Is my recycling about reducing waste in my town (a small issue), preventing deforestation (a medium issue), fighting climate change (a large issue) or being a good person (the most important issue of all)? Pretty much any action can be attached to a big cause by defining an even larger, and even more inclusive problem for it to be part of.
I think scale/scope is a pretty intuitive way of thinking about problems, which is I imagine why it’s part of the ITN framework. To my eye, the framework is successful because it reflects intuitive concepts like scale, so I don’t see too much of a coincidence here.
This is a good point. I don’t see any dissonance with respect to recycling and criminal justice—recycling is (nominally) about climate change, and climate change is a big deal, so recycling is important when you ignore the degree to which it can address the problem; likewise with criminal justice. Still, you’re right that my “straw activist” would probably scoff at AI risk, for example.
I guess I’d say that the way of thinking I’ve described doesn’t imply an accurate assessment of problem scale, and since skepticism about the (relatively formal) arguments on which concerns about AI risk are based is core to the worldview, there’d be no reason for someone like this to accept that some of the more “out there” GCRs are GCRs at all.
Quite separately, there is a tendency among all activists (EAs included) to see convergence where there is none, and I think this goes a long way toward neutralizing legitimate but (to the activist) novel concerns. Anecdotally, I see this a lot—the proposition, for instance, that international development will come “along for the ride” when the U.S. gets its own racial justice house in order, or that the end of capitalism necessarily implies more effective global cooperation.
It seems a lot depends on how you group together things into causes then. Is my recycling about reducing waste in my town (a small issue), preventing deforestation (a medium issue), fighting climate change (a large issue) or being a good person (the most important issue of all)? Pretty much any action can be attached to a big cause by defining an even larger, and even more inclusive problem for it to be part of.