I felt unsure how many people this AMA would be useful to, if anyone, and whether it would be worth posting.
But Iād guess itās probably a good norm for EAs who might have relatively high levels of expertise in a relatively niche area to just make themselves known, and then let others decide whether it seems worthwhile to use them as a bridge between that niche area and EA. The potential upsideāthe creation of such bridgesāseems notably larger than the downsidesāa little time wasted writing and reading the post, before people ultimately just decide itās not valuable and scroll on by.
Iād be interested in other peopleās thoughts on that idea, and whether itād be worth more people doing ātentative AMAsā, if theyāre āsort-ofā experts in some particular area that isnāt known to already be quite well represented in EA (e.g., probably not computer science or population ethics). E.g., maybe someone who did a Masters project on medieval Europe could do an AMA, without really knowing why any EAs would care, and then just see if anyone takes them up on it.
Itās now occurred to me that a natural option to compare this against is having something like a directory listing EAs who are open to 1-on-1s on various topics, where their areas of expertise or interest are noted. Like this or this.
Here are some quick thoughts on how these options compare. But Iād be interested in othersā thoughts too.
Relative disadvantages of this ātentative AMAā approach:
Less centralised; you canāt see all the people listed in one place (or a small handful of places)
Harder to find again later; this post will soon slip off the radar, unless people remember it or happen to search for it
Maybe directs a disproportionate amount of attention/āprominence to the semi-random subset of EAs who decide to do a ātentative AMAā
E.g., for at least a brief period, this post is on the frontpage, just as would be an AMA from Toby Ord, Will MacAskill, etc., even though those are much more notable and relevant for many EAs. If a lot of people did ātentative AMAsā, thatād happen a lot. Whereas just one post where all such people can comment or add themselves to a directory would only ātake up attentionā once, in a sense.
On the other hand, the karma system provides a sort of natural way of sorting that out.
Relative advantage of this ātentative AMAā approach:
More likely to lead to public answers and discussion, rather than just 1-on-1s, which may benefit more people and allow the discussion to be found again later
Meta comment
I felt unsure how many people this AMA would be useful to, if anyone, and whether it would be worth posting.
But Iād guess itās probably a good norm for EAs who might have relatively high levels of expertise in a relatively niche area to just make themselves known, and then let others decide whether it seems worthwhile to use them as a bridge between that niche area and EA. The potential upsideāthe creation of such bridgesāseems notably larger than the downsidesāa little time wasted writing and reading the post, before people ultimately just decide itās not valuable and scroll on by.
Iād be interested in other peopleās thoughts on that idea, and whether itād be worth more people doing ātentative AMAsā, if theyāre āsort-ofā experts in some particular area that isnāt known to already be quite well represented in EA (e.g., probably not computer science or population ethics). E.g., maybe someone who did a Masters project on medieval Europe could do an AMA, without really knowing why any EAs would care, and then just see if anyone takes them up on it.
Itās now occurred to me that a natural option to compare this against is having something like a directory listing EAs who are open to 1-on-1s on various topics, where their areas of expertise or interest are noted. Like this or this.
Here are some quick thoughts on how these options compare. But Iād be interested in othersā thoughts too.
Relative disadvantages of this ātentative AMAā approach:
Less centralised; you canāt see all the people listed in one place (or a small handful of places)
Harder to find again later; this post will soon slip off the radar, unless people remember it or happen to search for it
Maybe directs a disproportionate amount of attention/āprominence to the semi-random subset of EAs who decide to do a ātentative AMAā
E.g., for at least a brief period, this post is on the frontpage, just as would be an AMA from Toby Ord, Will MacAskill, etc., even though those are much more notable and relevant for many EAs. If a lot of people did ātentative AMAsā, thatād happen a lot. Whereas just one post where all such people can comment or add themselves to a directory would only ātake up attentionā once, in a sense.
On the other hand, the karma system provides a sort of natural way of sorting that out.
Relative advantage of this ātentative AMAā approach:
More likely to lead to public answers and discussion, rather than just 1-on-1s, which may benefit more people and allow the discussion to be found again later