Thanks for the elaboration, no, that all felt very comprehensible to me! Hopefully not ghibbering too much as well:
Knowledge capital?
I agree that “idea” is more strongly connected with propositional knowledge, which is suboptimal, and that “knowledge” seems preferable as it covers the other types you bring up. I just googled “knowledge capital” and that might fit nicely and seems like it’s actually an existing term from economics that overlaps a lot with what you have in mind (though of course missing the side-benefit of alluding to potentially neglected forms of analysis that you mention).
The term knowledge capital refers to the intangible value of an organization made up of its knowledge, relationships, learned techniques, procedures, and innovations. In other words, knowledge capital is the full body of knowledge an organization possesses.
Memetic’s lack of ephasis on argument still worries me
One potential point of disagreement that is also related to my discomfort with memetics is this sentence:
However, we can also ask “Which trajectory does EA’s cultural evolution have, and how can we influence that trajectory so that it flows into a more desirable manner and direction?”
I generally feel icky about strategies that try to affect the cultural development of a community when this is not done transparently and deliberately. And memes kind of feel unilateral and uncooperative this way. For example say you’d like the EA community to engage more with authentic relating training to prevent unproductive and unnecessary conflicts. One way to do this would be to make a case for it on the EA forum, giving arguments and let people see and get excited about your vision. Another approach would be to think about ways to put authentic relating into easily digestable chunks that include positive vibes about authentic relating and an association of authentic relating with effectiveness or whatever. :D
You bring up that memetics helps with understanding failure modes in cultural evolution, and that seems benign and useful to me. But I’d wish that the interventions based on that understanding are also done transparently and cooperatively, and while you probably agree with that, I still worry that a memetic approach tends to emphasize the cooperative improvement and truth-seeking less than e.g. “cultivating EA’ s shared knowledge (capital)”.
And though I sometimes sound a whole lot Slytherin, I absolutely don’t want to normalize using the Dark Arts in EA community building. I’ll change the term in the initial post and link to this comment thread.
Thanks for the elaboration, no, that all felt very comprehensible to me! Hopefully not ghibbering too much as well:
Knowledge capital?
I agree that “idea” is more strongly connected with propositional knowledge, which is suboptimal, and that “knowledge” seems preferable as it covers the other types you bring up. I just googled “knowledge capital” and that might fit nicely and seems like it’s actually an existing term from economics that overlaps a lot with what you have in mind (though of course missing the side-benefit of alluding to potentially neglected forms of analysis that you mention).
From Investopedia:
Memetic’s lack of ephasis on argument still worries me
One potential point of disagreement that is also related to my discomfort with memetics is this sentence:
I generally feel icky about strategies that try to affect the cultural development of a community when this is not done transparently and deliberately. And memes kind of feel unilateral and uncooperative this way. For example say you’d like the EA community to engage more with authentic relating training to prevent unproductive and unnecessary conflicts. One way to do this would be to make a case for it on the EA forum, giving arguments and let people see and get excited about your vision. Another approach would be to think about ways to put authentic relating into easily digestable chunks that include positive vibes about authentic relating and an association of authentic relating with effectiveness or whatever. :D
You bring up that memetics helps with understanding failure modes in cultural evolution, and that seems benign and useful to me. But I’d wish that the interventions based on that understanding are also done transparently and cooperatively, and while you probably agree with that, I still worry that a memetic approach tends to emphasize the cooperative improvement and truth-seeking less than e.g. “cultivating EA’ s shared knowledge (capital)”.
Agreed, “knowledge capital” fits well.
And though I sometimes sound a whole lot Slytherin, I absolutely don’t want to normalize using the Dark Arts in EA community building. I’ll change the term in the initial post and link to this comment thread.