I felt unsure how many people this AMA would be useful to, if anyone, and whether it would be worth posting.
But I’d guess it’s 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 upside—the creation of such bridges—seems notably larger than the downsides—a little time wasted writing and reading the post, before people ultimately just decide it’s not valuable and scroll on by.
I’d be interested in other people’s thoughts on that idea, and whether it’d be worth more people doing “tentative AMAs”, if they’re “sort-of” experts in some particular area that isn’t 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.
It’s 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 I’d be interested in others’ thoughts too.
Relative disadvantages of this “tentative AMA” approach:
Less centralised; you can’t 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/prominence to the semi-random subset of EAs who decide to do a “tentative AMA”
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 “tentative AMAs”, that’d happen a lot. Whereas just one post where all such people can comment or add themselves to a directory would only “take up attention” 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 “tentative AMA” 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 I’d guess it’s 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 upside—the creation of such bridges—seems notably larger than the downsides—a little time wasted writing and reading the post, before people ultimately just decide it’s not valuable and scroll on by.
I’d be interested in other people’s thoughts on that idea, and whether it’d be worth more people doing “tentative AMAs”, if they’re “sort-of” experts in some particular area that isn’t 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.
It’s 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 I’d be interested in others’ thoughts too.
Relative disadvantages of this “tentative AMA” approach:
Less centralised; you can’t 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/prominence to the semi-random subset of EAs who decide to do a “tentative AMA”
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 “tentative AMAs”, that’d happen a lot. Whereas just one post where all such people can comment or add themselves to a directory would only “take up attention” 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 “tentative AMA” 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