I made this because because I think it reflects an interesting psychological reality: a lot of EAs IMO are trying to reach a sort of balance between “too weird/uncertain/indirect/abstract” and “obviously lower-EV than some alternative”, but there isn’t a clear Schelling threshold for where on that spectrum to land, outside of the two extremes.
I haven’t checked if you’ve posted this in the Dank EA Memes Facebook group yet, though you should if you haven’t. This meme would be incredibly popular in that group. It would get hundreds of likes. It would be the discourse premise that would launch one thousand threads. This is one of the rare occasions when posting in Dank EA Memes might net you the kind of serious feedback you want better than posting on this forum or LessWrong or, really, anywhere else on the internet.
I posted it there and on Twitter. :) Honestly, it plausibly deserves a top-level EA Forum post as well; I don’t usually think memes are the best way to carry out discourse, but in this case I feel like it would be healthy for EA to be more self-aware and explicit about the fact that this dynamic is going on, and have a serious larger conversation about it.
(And if people nit-pick some of the specific factual claims implied by my meme, all the better!)
That’s great! Beyond that, you’re taking the potential implications of this meme so seriously, and encouraging others to use memes as a springboard for so much more deep, technical discourse, you’ve hit diminishing marginal returns, so quit encouraging others to nit-pick your factual claims while you’re ahead.
Cross-posting a meme here:
I made this because because I think it reflects an interesting psychological reality: a lot of EAs IMO are trying to reach a sort of balance between “too weird/uncertain/indirect/abstract” and “obviously lower-EV than some alternative”, but there isn’t a clear Schelling threshold for where on that spectrum to land, outside of the two extremes.
I haven’t checked if you’ve posted this in the Dank EA Memes Facebook group yet, though you should if you haven’t. This meme would be incredibly popular in that group. It would get hundreds of likes. It would be the discourse premise that would launch one thousand threads. This is one of the rare occasions when posting in Dank EA Memes might net you the kind of serious feedback you want better than posting on this forum or LessWrong or, really, anywhere else on the internet.
I posted it there and on Twitter. :) Honestly, it plausibly deserves a top-level EA Forum post as well; I don’t usually think memes are the best way to carry out discourse, but in this case I feel like it would be healthy for EA to be more self-aware and explicit about the fact that this dynamic is going on, and have a serious larger conversation about it.
(And if people nit-pick some of the specific factual claims implied by my meme, all the better!)
@Yonatan Cale , hoping this would trigger you
I didn’t read the whole thread, but I totally think memes are under rated in EA
That’s great! Beyond that, you’re taking the potential implications of this meme so seriously, and encouraging others to use memes as a springboard for so much more deep, technical discourse, you’ve hit diminishing marginal returns, so quit encouraging others to nit-pick your factual claims while you’re ahead.
It’s April 1st.
:)