I don’t know much about LW/ESPR/SPARC but I suspect a lot of their impact flows through convincing people of important ideas and/or the social aspect rather than their impact on community epistemics/integrity?
Some of the sorts of outcomes I have in mind are just things like altered cause prioritisation, different projects getting funded, generally better decision-making.
Similarly, if the goal is to help people think about cause prioritisation, I think fairly standard EA retreats / fellowships are quite good at this? I’m not sure we need some intermediary step like “improve community epistemics”.
Appreciate you responding and tracking this concern though!
I think fairly standard EA retreats / fellowships are quite good at this
Maybe. To take cause prio as an example, my impression is that the framing is often a bit more like: ‘here are lots of cause areas EAs think are high impact! Also, cause prioritisation might be v important.’ (That’s basically how I interpret the vibe and emphasis of the EA Handbook / EAVP.) Not so much ‘cause prio is really important. Let’s actually try and do that and think carefully about how to do this well, without just deferring to existing people’s views.’
So there’s a direct ^ version like that that I’d be excited about.
Although perhaps contradictorily I’m also envisaging something even more indirect than the retreats/fellowships you mention as a possibility, where the impact comes through generally developing skills that enable people to be top contributors to EA thinking, top cause areas, etc.
I don’t know much about LW/ESPR/SPARC but I suspect a lot of their impact flows through convincing people of important ideas and/or the social aspect rather than their impact on community epistemics/integrity?
Yeah I think this is part of it. But I also think that they help by getting people to think carefully and arrive at sensible and better processes/opinions.
Thanks!
I don’t know much about LW/ESPR/SPARC but I suspect a lot of their impact flows through convincing people of important ideas and/or the social aspect rather than their impact on community epistemics/integrity?
Similarly, if the goal is to help people think about cause prioritisation, I think fairly standard EA retreats / fellowships are quite good at this? I’m not sure we need some intermediary step like “improve community epistemics”.
Appreciate you responding and tracking this concern though!
Maybe. To take cause prio as an example, my impression is that the framing is often a bit more like: ‘here are lots of cause areas EAs think are high impact! Also, cause prioritisation might be v important.’ (That’s basically how I interpret the vibe and emphasis of the EA Handbook / EAVP.) Not so much ‘cause prio is really important. Let’s actually try and do that and think carefully about how to do this well, without just deferring to existing people’s views.’
So there’s a direct ^ version like that that I’d be excited about.
Although perhaps contradictorily I’m also envisaging something even more indirect than the retreats/fellowships you mention as a possibility, where the impact comes through generally developing skills that enable people to be top contributors to EA thinking, top cause areas, etc.
Yeah I think this is part of it. But I also think that they help by getting people to think carefully and arrive at sensible and better processes/opinions.