Side note: I’ve read the post on pocket first, and it simply omitted section 7 without any hint of its existence. Wonder if that happens more frequently.
As for the post itself, I do agree with most of it. I think though that it (particularly point 1) has some risk of reinforcing some people’s perception of reaching out to well known people as a potential status violation, which I think is already quite common in EA (although I know of some people who would disagree with me on this).
I would guess most people already have a tendency to “not waste important people’s time” (whatever “important” means to them) and rather err on the side of avoiding these people and e.g. not ask for a 1-1 at a conference even though they might benefit greatly from it.
To make it short, I agree quite strongly with your point 7, but not so much with (the general vibe of) point 1.
Thanks! Yep, I’m definitely an outlier in EA regarding how much I don’t care about authority.
I added section 7 a couple hours after publication to account for feedback on the lesswrong side of this post. Now also added a disclaimer at the start:
“Note: The intended message of this post is not “Don’t reach out to busy people!”, but “Do reach out, and have these things in mind to make it more likely to get a response/if you don’t get one.” ”
Side note: I’ve read the post on pocket first, and it simply omitted section 7 without any hint of its existence. Wonder if that happens more frequently.
As for the post itself, I do agree with most of it. I think though that it (particularly point 1) has some risk of reinforcing some people’s perception of reaching out to well known people as a potential status violation, which I think is already quite common in EA (although I know of some people who would disagree with me on this). I would guess most people already have a tendency to “not waste important people’s time” (whatever “important” means to them) and rather err on the side of avoiding these people and e.g. not ask for a 1-1 at a conference even though they might benefit greatly from it. To make it short, I agree quite strongly with your point 7, but not so much with (the general vibe of) point 1.
Thanks! Yep, I’m definitely an outlier in EA regarding how much I don’t care about authority.
I added section 7 a couple hours after publication to account for feedback on the lesswrong side of this post. Now also added a disclaimer at the start:
“Note: The intended message of this post is not “Don’t reach out to busy people!”, but “Do reach out, and have these things in mind to make it more likely to get a response/if you don’t get one.” ”