I think I might be missing what’s distinctive here. A lot of the traits listed — strong knowledge of the field, engagement with the community, epistemic humility, broad curiosity — seem like general predictors of success in any many fields.
Are you pointing at something that’s unusually clustered in EA, or is your claim more about how trainable and highly predictive this combination is within the EA context?
I agree they’re generally useful. I claim[1] they’re especially useful in EA. But that’s not enough to make this interesting.
There are many generally useful correlated traits where the correlation with general mental ability is stronger than the correlation between those traits. So being a good writer is good, and also being good at solving math problems is good. And they’re positively correlated. But most things are, just through general intelligence.
What becomes interesting is identifying a cluster of traits that are more correlated with each other than with intelligence, and also predictive of success. These are rare, and usually wrong.[2] If such a cluster can be identified, than knowing about it can help you identify talent that will do well.
If such a cluster is also trainable, well then, you’ve got a real prize.
I think I might be missing what’s distinctive here. A lot of the traits listed — strong knowledge of the field, engagement with the community, epistemic humility, broad curiosity — seem like general predictors of success in any many fields.
Are you pointing at something that’s unusually clustered in EA, or is your claim more about how trainable and highly predictive this combination is within the EA context?
I agree they’re generally useful. I claim[1] they’re especially useful in EA. But that’s not enough to make this interesting.
There are many generally useful correlated traits where the correlation with general mental ability is stronger than the correlation between those traits. So being a good writer is good, and also being good at solving math problems is good. And they’re positively correlated. But most things are, just through general intelligence.
What becomes interesting is identifying a cluster of traits that are more correlated with each other than with intelligence, and also predictive of success. These are rare, and usually wrong.[2] If such a cluster can be identified, than knowing about it can help you identify talent that will do well.
If such a cluster is also trainable, well then, you’ve got a real prize.
With the noted caveats.
Citation needed.