A lot of people start their project later than they should, and a lot start it earlier. So this kind of article is going to move a lot of people to be more rash, for better and for worse. The problem is that audiences probably self-select these articles based on fulfilling their existing preconceptions. On net, it’s not obvious whether or not this ends up being useful, even granted that you think most people move too slowly on their projects (which could as easily be your mistake as theirs anyway).
I reckon it would be more useful to actually discuss some concrete situations (deidentified mashups of career stories) so that people could actually know how rash you think people were beforehand and where they’re supposed to end up. This would help people to know how they’re supposed to generalise your arguments to their own example, and would also help the community to figure out how it actually disagrees about the topic, rather than just pushing abstract arguments back and forth.
Strongly agree with this. I think there was some good material in the opening post, but I downvoted because I thought it was likely net-negative because of this dynamic of audiences self-selecting.
I think the advice ought to be: you should seriously consider just starting on a project to pursue G. But you shouldn’t actually launch into G without getting a whole lot of outside views on whether it’s a good idea, because it can be hard to tell from the inside, particularly if you don’t already have deep expertise.
I agree with Owen’s comments and the others. The basic message of my post, however, seems to be something like, “Make sure you compare your plans to reality” while emphasizing the failure mode I see more often in EA (that people overestimate the difficulty of launching their own project).
Would it be correct to say that your comments don’t disagree with the underlying message, but rather believe that my framing will have net harmful effects because you predict that many people reading this forum will be incited to take unwise actions?
I agree that people should try to reason about the factors actually constraining the success of their project and try to unblock those.
But I don’t agree that most people need to spend less time qualifying themselves to complete their projects. Sure, people should question whether their success is constrained by their knowledge and qualifications, but often it is.
I’d rather say:
Do you need a degree to emigrate?
Do you want to work for an existing policy organisation?
Do you want to work as an academic?
Do you want to do targeted movement-building with academics?
Do you want to network with many researchers?
If so, your success will probably be limited if you don’t get an undergraduate degree. You may need graduate education also.
I guess you’d agree. Most of what’s done by leading EAs like Bostrom/Ord/MacAskill needs (or can be greatly helped) one or more degrees. Even for people like Musk or Yudkowsky who are seemingly completing their own projects, degrees can help in many ways.
People who are devoted enough to drop out of their degree at a young age based on reading complex online arguments are the same sorts of people whose influence in policy I’d want to preserve. These people need to be encouraged to make a 5+ year long plan, and to stay the course.
Sure, there are plenty of people who reach their thirties and forties and never quite manage to pull the trigger and start their own project, or move to that nonprofit job. And for that audience, you need to deliver your kind of message.
Sure, if you have extensive transferable skills, and want to perform activities like grassroots outreach and fundraising or starting a company of a less technical variety, then going in with few qualifications is appropriate. But that’s a hard way and it’s not the only way.
Another way of thinking about it is that there are intrapreneurs (people who pursue influence within an organisation) and entrepreneurs (people who go off and start their own thing). People who work within a system or start over outside of it. For the people who are insiders and intrapreneurs, I’d prefer they read a motivational post that had roughly opposite content to what’s here.
I can only speak for myself, but I would say your message could have been delivered much more optimally and made a significant net positive impact by doing so.
Rather than telling people “go start stuff up,” it could have said “go learn the skills and knowledge necessary to start stuff up, which are much less extensive than you think them to be, while also ensuring you build up the emotional and cognitive tools needed to deal with failure and updating your beliefs about your project.”
My thoughts, in other words, are not a rejection of the fundamental message, simply a desire for a more optimal delivery of the message.
A lot of people start their project later than they should, and a lot start it earlier. So this kind of article is going to move a lot of people to be more rash, for better and for worse. The problem is that audiences probably self-select these articles based on fulfilling their existing preconceptions.
Good point. For this reason, advice that is customized to a particular person is in general to be preferred to generic advice, especially in tricky areas with lots of sign-changing factors. But of course customized advice is not always possible.
I reckon it would be more useful to actually discuss some concrete situations (deidentified mashups of career stories) so that people could actually know how rash you think people were beforehand and where they’re supposed to end up.
I agree with this criticism, and would also suggest that it would be more useful to discuss what kind of knowledge about launching projects people should try to get before launching projects. There’s plenty of literature about launching projects, and plenty of EAs can provide guidance and expertise about launching projects.
A lot of people start their project later than they should, and a lot start it earlier. So this kind of article is going to move a lot of people to be more rash, for better and for worse. The problem is that audiences probably self-select these articles based on fulfilling their existing preconceptions. On net, it’s not obvious whether or not this ends up being useful, even granted that you think most people move too slowly on their projects (which could as easily be your mistake as theirs anyway).
I reckon it would be more useful to actually discuss some concrete situations (deidentified mashups of career stories) so that people could actually know how rash you think people were beforehand and where they’re supposed to end up. This would help people to know how they’re supposed to generalise your arguments to their own example, and would also help the community to figure out how it actually disagrees about the topic, rather than just pushing abstract arguments back and forth.
Strongly agree with this. I think there was some good material in the opening post, but I downvoted because I thought it was likely net-negative because of this dynamic of audiences self-selecting.
I think the advice ought to be: you should seriously consider just starting on a project to pursue G. But you shouldn’t actually launch into G without getting a whole lot of outside views on whether it’s a good idea, because it can be hard to tell from the inside, particularly if you don’t already have deep expertise.
I agree with Owen’s comments and the others. The basic message of my post, however, seems to be something like, “Make sure you compare your plans to reality” while emphasizing the failure mode I see more often in EA (that people overestimate the difficulty of launching their own project).
Would it be correct to say that your comments don’t disagree with the underlying message, but rather believe that my framing will have net harmful effects because you predict that many people reading this forum will be incited to take unwise actions?
I agree that people should try to reason about the factors actually constraining the success of their project and try to unblock those.
But I don’t agree that most people need to spend less time qualifying themselves to complete their projects. Sure, people should question whether their success is constrained by their knowledge and qualifications, but often it is.
I’d rather say:
Do you need a degree to emigrate?
Do you want to work for an existing policy organisation?
Do you want to work as an academic?
Do you want to do targeted movement-building with academics?
Do you want to network with many researchers? If so, your success will probably be limited if you don’t get an undergraduate degree. You may need graduate education also.
I guess you’d agree. Most of what’s done by leading EAs like Bostrom/Ord/MacAskill needs (or can be greatly helped) one or more degrees. Even for people like Musk or Yudkowsky who are seemingly completing their own projects, degrees can help in many ways.
People who are devoted enough to drop out of their degree at a young age based on reading complex online arguments are the same sorts of people whose influence in policy I’d want to preserve. These people need to be encouraged to make a 5+ year long plan, and to stay the course.
Sure, there are plenty of people who reach their thirties and forties and never quite manage to pull the trigger and start their own project, or move to that nonprofit job. And for that audience, you need to deliver your kind of message.
Sure, if you have extensive transferable skills, and want to perform activities like grassroots outreach and fundraising or starting a company of a less technical variety, then going in with few qualifications is appropriate. But that’s a hard way and it’s not the only way.
Another way of thinking about it is that there are intrapreneurs (people who pursue influence within an organisation) and entrepreneurs (people who go off and start their own thing). People who work within a system or start over outside of it. For the people who are insiders and intrapreneurs, I’d prefer they read a motivational post that had roughly opposite content to what’s here.
I can only speak for myself, but I would say your message could have been delivered much more optimally and made a significant net positive impact by doing so.
Rather than telling people “go start stuff up,” it could have said “go learn the skills and knowledge necessary to start stuff up, which are much less extensive than you think them to be, while also ensuring you build up the emotional and cognitive tools needed to deal with failure and updating your beliefs about your project.”
My thoughts, in other words, are not a rejection of the fundamental message, simply a desire for a more optimal delivery of the message.
Good point. For this reason, advice that is customized to a particular person is in general to be preferred to generic advice, especially in tricky areas with lots of sign-changing factors. But of course customized advice is not always possible.
I agree with this criticism, and would also suggest that it would be more useful to discuss what kind of knowledge about launching projects people should try to get before launching projects. There’s plenty of literature about launching projects, and plenty of EAs can provide guidance and expertise about launching projects.