I thought I undertsood 30-80% core ideas of most EA cause areas(including animal welfare, global development, x-risks, community building, forecasting,...even s-risks) and crticisms about them, and the career choice/ cause priortization estimates on each areas. But we need to be humble, because the deeper you think in EA, the more aspects you found unconsidered. There seems no stopping on thinking about EA. So, how much time did it take you to undertsand real EA, or you think you actually have never really understand EA?
Yeah, there might be no end to how much you can understand about EA (or, more generally, stuff about the world that’s relevant to altruism).
I certainly have my own blindspots but when talking to many other EAs I do notice that there a lot of topics they seem unfamiliar with:
The extent of the uncertainty we have about the philosophy of mind
Chances of being in a simulation/percentage of copies in a simulation and how that affects the expected value of various actions
Philosophy of science/core assumptions behind how one thinks the world works
Views of people in other parts of the world/society.
Relatedly, how futures led by influential people in other countries might compare to futures led by influential people in their own countries.
Reasons to think that there are quite a lot of things that are low tractability
Noticing how they came to be who they are/their place in history
Impact of various activities on wild animal suffering
I don’t claim to know everything about the above. And of course, others who know more about other things might notice that there are a lot topics I’m unfamiliar with. Some topics I haven’t really thought about that much relative to a lot of people working at EA organizations:
Anthropics
Alien civilizations, how that affects priorities in longtermism
Ethical theories that are super formalized (my moral anti-realism doesn’t make me that motivated to look into them)
Acausal interactions and decision theory
I don’t think there’s a single cause area where even knowing the sum of all human knowledge on the topic would mean you fully understand it
Sorry for my inaccurate words. It’s impossible to 100% understand each subjects(such as math, physics...) But how much time does it take for “enough understanding” in every cause area?