Have you considered not spending time on those questions if you expect you can’t find any good answers? Your time is probably valuable; perhaps you can better spend it elsewhere.
Btw, I just want to flag that this
Some additional context is I created a Reddit bot to find Redditors asking for advice on altruistic careers or best charities, so I can try to steer people towards effective resources (like GiveWell and 80,000 Hours).
comes off (to me at least) as a little bit coercive. To be clear, I’m not saying you’re actually coercing people, just that the text gives that vibe. I guess it’s the difference between letting people know these are possibilities and trying to convince them they should do this or that. Anyway, the project of trying to find and help people asking about donations seems cool!
>Have you considered not spending time on those questions if you expect you can’t find any good answers?
I’m not spending much time on them. I have to sort through the less-easy-to-answer questions in order to find the more-easy-to-answer ones. I am spending time on the overall project, but you would make a false assumption if you extrapolate these to all of the other questions I’m seeing. I’m posting about these specifically because they are less easy to answer. The easy-to-answer questions I’m not asking for advice on because I can already generate a good answer.
Is the overall project work worth the time? It’s hard for any of us to answer that question about our work. I am currently trying to collect some data on how much my responses have changed people’s minds, but it takes work to find that out.
>this… comes off… as a little bit coercive.
There’s always a balance between being pushy and not saying enough when giving advice. It feels appropriate that I’m giving people advice on topics which they’ve asked for advice on. I wrote “steer… towards” which is something you might associate with a manager or captain who is directing people. Perhaps the words, “let them know” would have been more apt. What I’m doing is more giving information than making the decision for people.
I am spending time on the overall project, but you would make a false assumption if you extrapolate these to all of the other questions I’m seeing. I’m posting about these specifically because they are less easy to answer.
I meant considering not spending time on those particular questions, i.e. the ones that seemed especially hard to answer. Like I said, the overall project sounds useful (but obviously hard for me to evaluate given the limited information I have).
Have you considered not spending time on those questions if you expect you can’t find any good answers? Your time is probably valuable; perhaps you can better spend it elsewhere.
Btw, I just want to flag that this
comes off (to me at least) as a little bit coercive. To be clear, I’m not saying you’re actually coercing people, just that the text gives that vibe. I guess it’s the difference between letting people know these are possibilities and trying to convince them they should do this or that. Anyway, the project of trying to find and help people asking about donations seems cool!
>Have you considered not spending time on those questions if you expect you can’t find any good answers?
I’m not spending much time on them. I have to sort through the less-easy-to-answer questions in order to find the more-easy-to-answer ones. I am spending time on the overall project, but you would make a false assumption if you extrapolate these to all of the other questions I’m seeing. I’m posting about these specifically because they are less easy to answer. The easy-to-answer questions I’m not asking for advice on because I can already generate a good answer.
Is the overall project work worth the time? It’s hard for any of us to answer that question about our work. I am currently trying to collect some data on how much my responses have changed people’s minds, but it takes work to find that out.
>this… comes off… as a little bit coercive.
There’s always a balance between being pushy and not saying enough when giving advice. It feels appropriate that I’m giving people advice on topics which they’ve asked for advice on. I wrote “steer… towards” which is something you might associate with a manager or captain who is directing people. Perhaps the words, “let them know” would have been more apt. What I’m doing is more giving information than making the decision for people.
I meant considering not spending time on those particular questions, i.e. the ones that seemed especially hard to answer. Like I said, the overall project sounds useful (but obviously hard for me to evaluate given the limited information I have).
Ok, got it. Yeah these particular questions I may have to ignore if I can’t come up with better answers.