I agree with the general point, but just want to respond to some of your criticism of the philosopher.
Also, why is he criticizing the relatively small numbers of people actually trying to improve the world and not the far larger sums of money that corportaions, governments, etc, are wasting on ~morally neutral vanity projects?
He might think it’s much easier to influence EA and Open Phil, because they share similar enough views to be potentially sympathetic to his arguments (I think he’s a utilitarian), actually pay attention to his arguments, and are even willing to pay him to make these arguments.
More to the point, wtf is he doing? He’s a seemingly competent guy who’s somehow a professor of philosophy/blogger instead of (eg) being a medical researcher on gene drives or earning-to-give to morally valuable causes. And he never seems to engage with the irony at all. Like wtf?
Convincing EAs/Open Phil to prioritize global health more (or whatever he thinks is most important) or to improve its cause and intervention prioritization reasoning generally could be higher impact (much higher leverage) from his POV. Also, he might not be a good fit for medical research or earning-to-give for whatever reason. Philosophy is pretty different.
I also suspect these criticisms would prove too much, and could be made against cause prioritization work and critique of EA reasoning more generally.
I also suspect these criticisms [..] would prove too much, and could be made against cause prioritization work and critique of EA reasoning more generally.
I think of all people, if any EA cause prioritization researchers do not at least seriously consider that their time might be spent better elsewhere than by doing cause prioritization, they suck at cause prioritization.
I hope my own research work is useful, but I have pretty high uncertainty here. As I mentioned elsewhere:
We would naively expect people who spend a lot of time on cause prioritization to systematically overrate (relative to the broader community) both the non-obviousness of the most important causes, and their esotericism.
But tbc, my critique above is about isolated demands for consequentialism/people not grappling with the relevant difficulties, not a claim that the correct all-things-considered view is that cause prio is useless. Obviously my own revealed (and stated) preferences are different.
I agree, but I don’t see evidence in your comment that the critique applies to the philosopher in particular, or enough to single them out for it. I don’t know what they’ve thought about their own career decisions, and your comment didn’t tell me anything about their thoughts (or lack thereof) on the topic, either. They could have good reasons for doing what they’re doing now over alternatives.
I’m not that invested in this topic, but if you have information you don’t want to share publicly and want to leave up the criticism, it may be worth flagging that, and maybe others will take you up on your offer and can confirm.
I agree with anonymizing. Even if you’re right about them and have good reasons for believing it, singling out people by name for unsolicited public criticism of their career choices seems unusual, unusually personal, fairly totalizing/promoting demandingness,[1] and at high risk of strawmanning them if they haven’t explicitly defended it to you or others, so it might be better not to do or indirectly promote by doing. Criticizing their public writing seems fair game, of course.
Someone might have non-utilitarian reasons for choosing one career over another, like they might have for having children. That being said, this can apply to an anonymous critique, too, but it seems much harsher when you name someone, because it’s like public shaming.
To be clear, I do not have private information, I just think this conversation is better had offline. To the extent singling them out in a comment is mean, explaining why I did so publicly might also be mean.
I agree with the general point, but just want to respond to some of your criticism of the philosopher.
He might think it’s much easier to influence EA and Open Phil, because they share similar enough views to be potentially sympathetic to his arguments (I think he’s a utilitarian), actually pay attention to his arguments, and are even willing to pay him to make these arguments.
Convincing EAs/Open Phil to prioritize global health more (or whatever he thinks is most important) or to improve its cause and intervention prioritization reasoning generally could be higher impact (much higher leverage) from his POV. Also, he might not be a good fit for medical research or earning-to-give for whatever reason. Philosophy is pretty different.
I also suspect these criticisms would prove too much, and could be made against cause prioritization work and critique of EA reasoning more generally.
I think of all people, if any EA cause prioritization researchers do not at least seriously consider that their time might be spent better elsewhere than by doing cause prioritization, they suck at cause prioritization.
I hope my own research work is useful, but I have pretty high uncertainty here. As I mentioned elsewhere:
But tbc, my critique above is about isolated demands for consequentialism/people not grappling with the relevant difficulties, not a claim that the correct all-things-considered view is that cause prio is useless. Obviously my own revealed (and stated) preferences are different.
I agree, but I don’t see evidence in your comment that the critique applies to the philosopher in particular, or enough to single them out for it. I don’t know what they’ve thought about their own career decisions, and your comment didn’t tell me anything about their thoughts (or lack thereof) on the topic, either. They could have good reasons for doing what they’re doing now over alternatives.
I agree the stuff you say is possible, I just don’t think it’s likely. We can chat about this offline iff you want to.
Hmm on reflection maybe I should anonymize him the way I anonymized the ML lab person, out of politeness considerations?
I’m not that invested in this topic, but if you have information you don’t want to share publicly and want to leave up the criticism, it may be worth flagging that, and maybe others will take you up on your offer and can confirm.
I agree with anonymizing. Even if you’re right about them and have good reasons for believing it, singling out people by name for unsolicited public criticism of their career choices seems unusual, unusually personal, fairly totalizing/promoting demandingness,[1] and at high risk of strawmanning them if they haven’t explicitly defended it to you or others, so it might be better not to do or indirectly promote by doing. Criticizing their public writing seems fair game, of course.
Someone might have non-utilitarian reasons for choosing one career over another, like they might have for having children. That being said, this can apply to an anonymous critique, too, but it seems much harsher when you name someone, because it’s like public shaming.
To be clear, I do not have private information, I just think this conversation is better had offline. To the extent singling them out in a comment is mean, explaining why I did so publicly might also be mean.
I’ve anonymized. Can you do the same?
Done.