Rob Wiblin: Letās push on and talk about intellectual history as a high-impact career. So yeah, as far as I know, weāve never had a historian on the show before, which obviously means we havenāt had an intellectual historian either. And I think youāre reasonably familiar with 80,000 Hoursā goal of trying to help people have a bigger social impact with their career. Do you think some listeners should consider intellectual history as a potentially valuable career path to go on? And if so, why?
Tom Moynihan: Yeah, so I think that insofar as longtermism, EA-aligned with longtermism is about affecting the far future, trying to shape it positively, I think that there is actually a good case for history ā not necessarily intellectual history, but history broadly ā to play a bigger role in this new way of approaching priorities based on long arcs of history. So I do think that it can be impactful in the sense that it can actually derive lots of information value, so you can gain these nice insights and these things that weāve been talking about a lot of, you almost get a sense of the heuristics of background assumptions or ācrucial considerations.ā So thatās the term that Bostrom uses to basically describe a piece of information or knowledge that changes your whole priorities. So I think the example he uses is, if youāre lost in the woods and youāre using a compass, then you realize your compass is broken, thatās a crucial consideration.
Rob Wiblin: I guess the idea being that it doesnāt just mean that you should go one degree to the right, it means that everything is thrown into doubt.
Tom Moynihan: Exactly. So I think that it can be high-impact in the sense that there is a lot of information value to be derived here. Iāve noticed, thereās a post on the EA Forum of potentially valuable research areas in history, I think those are all brilliant. I think there was also an 80,000 Hours post talking about non-standard careers outside of the major priority areas, and one of them was a historian with a long-term arc of history specialization. Yeah, and so I think that thereās definitely a scope for this. I think that historians tend to not be EA-aligned, so thereās value for EAs to go and become historians and figure out the useful stuff. However, it is a non-standard career, and itās also highly competitive and risky. If you want to reliably have an impact, itās definitely not one to be advised. But if you want to take a big risk, maybe yeah.
Rob Wiblin: I think thatās probably the case with almost all academic or research careers ā that, again, itās hits based. Most researchers donāt have a massive social impact, but some of them really make important discoveries. I guess I would encourage people to make peace with that, rather than just try to play it super safe, because that limits your options so severely.
Tom Moynihan: Yeah, so I think that thatās the basic message that I want to give, is that, I think thereās scope for a lot of valuable information to be mined here, but the problem with that is that you donāt know what informationā¦ Particularly when youāre trying to find these long-term arcs or these stories about intellectual, moral, material, economic progress, you donāt know what youāre looking for ahead of time. I know that applies to almost all search functions in a sense, but you donāt know if itās going to pay out in the end. So yeah, I do think because of that non-standardness and riskiness, I think thatās definitely something to consider. But I do think that, to put it simply, in EA and longtermism thereās so much history, thereās so much talk of history. The hinge of history, moral circle expansion, these are all historical ideas, progress itself is a historical idea. So thereās definite scope to do valuable work here.
[...]
Rob Wiblin: Are there any particularly valuable questions within intellectual history that youād like to see people investigate that havenāt already come up? Weāve talked about quite a few.
Tom Moynihan: So, I think the question of the history of moral circle expansion and what are the causes that shift peopleās intuitions outside of the kind of baseline of prejudice. Because you can go back and find people arguing for various very forward-thinking moral positions earlier than that actually spilled out and became a wider movement or a wider cause. So, something mustāve happened to create that critical mass. I think that that could be interesting. The Needham question that I spoke about earlier, this question of why one civilization you have over here, itās actually far more technologically advancedā¦how they have something like a steam engine to open doors in the palaces, but just decide not to use it elsewhere. And then you have another civilization where something happens there that means that science locks in as an institution that perpetuates itself, perpetuates knowledge in a unique way.
Tom Moynihan: What are the institutions behind that? I think that thereās interesting research to be done there. Of course, and this is one that Iāve seen in various places, is researching the dynamics of lock-in. So, instances in the past where we can see clear path dependence in culture, values, et cetera. Also, again, another obvious one is studying the rise and fall of civilizations. What creates civilizational resilience? I think that making inductions from the past is dangerous because when civilizations have risen and fallen in the past, often it wasnāt a globalized technological civilization in the same way we have today, but people who have worked in this field have already kind of made that point. Tech trees, I think, are a really important and interesting place to try and look at. In a sense recreating the evolutionary tree of life, trying to do that for technology. And then that leads me to the final one that I find really interesting.
Tom Moynihan: And this comes from an idea that I got from a researcher Karim Jebari. He has, I think itās a preprint paper currently, but itās called Replaying historyās tape. And heās taking those ideas of contingency and convergence from the biological sciences and seeing if they can be meaningfully applied to civilization and cultural progress and technological progress. So, as I was saying earlier, I think we do tend to overestimate the convergence or the recurrence or repeatability of a lot of insights, ideas, technologies. And the line is of course blurred. I would really love a map of cultural progress across different cultures, civilizations, and trying to map how convergent some might be.
Tom Moynihan: And obviously the way of measuring this, and Jebari kind of puts this forward in the paper, is that if you can see a cultural practice appearing independently in lots of places, you can kind of presume that itās convergent in the same way as evolution. It becomes interesting because then when you get a more globalized society, it can appear in one place and then spread. So, thereās lots of interesting questions there I think to be had. And then, again, that can affect our judgments of how severe certain collapse events or very destructive global catastrophic risks are. So, I think thereās lots to be done there.
People interested in this post may also be interested in 80kās recent interview with Tom Moynihan āon why prior generations missed some of the biggest priorities of allā. Hereās a relevant excerpt:
---
Rob Wiblin: Letās push on and talk about intellectual history as a high-impact career. So yeah, as far as I know, weāve never had a historian on the show before, which obviously means we havenāt had an intellectual historian either. And I think youāre reasonably familiar with 80,000 Hoursā goal of trying to help people have a bigger social impact with their career. Do you think some listeners should consider intellectual history as a potentially valuable career path to go on? And if so, why?
Tom Moynihan: Yeah, so I think that insofar as longtermism, EA-aligned with longtermism is about affecting the far future, trying to shape it positively, I think that there is actually a good case for history ā not necessarily intellectual history, but history broadly ā to play a bigger role in this new way of approaching priorities based on long arcs of history. So I do think that it can be impactful in the sense that it can actually derive lots of information value, so you can gain these nice insights and these things that weāve been talking about a lot of, you almost get a sense of the heuristics of background assumptions or ācrucial considerations.ā So thatās the term that Bostrom uses to basically describe a piece of information or knowledge that changes your whole priorities. So I think the example he uses is, if youāre lost in the woods and youāre using a compass, then you realize your compass is broken, thatās a crucial consideration.
Rob Wiblin: I guess the idea being that it doesnāt just mean that you should go one degree to the right, it means that everything is thrown into doubt.
Tom Moynihan: Exactly. So I think that it can be high-impact in the sense that there is a lot of information value to be derived here. Iāve noticed, thereās a post on the EA Forum of potentially valuable research areas in history, I think those are all brilliant. I think there was also an 80,000 Hours post talking about non-standard careers outside of the major priority areas, and one of them was a historian with a long-term arc of history specialization. Yeah, and so I think that thereās definitely a scope for this. I think that historians tend to not be EA-aligned, so thereās value for EAs to go and become historians and figure out the useful stuff. However, it is a non-standard career, and itās also highly competitive and risky. If you want to reliably have an impact, itās definitely not one to be advised. But if you want to take a big risk, maybe yeah.
Rob Wiblin: I think thatās probably the case with almost all academic or research careers ā that, again, itās hits based. Most researchers donāt have a massive social impact, but some of them really make important discoveries. I guess I would encourage people to make peace with that, rather than just try to play it super safe, because that limits your options so severely.
Tom Moynihan: Yeah, so I think that thatās the basic message that I want to give, is that, I think thereās scope for a lot of valuable information to be mined here, but the problem with that is that you donāt know what informationā¦ Particularly when youāre trying to find these long-term arcs or these stories about intellectual, moral, material, economic progress, you donāt know what youāre looking for ahead of time. I know that applies to almost all search functions in a sense, but you donāt know if itās going to pay out in the end. So yeah, I do think because of that non-standardness and riskiness, I think thatās definitely something to consider. But I do think that, to put it simply, in EA and longtermism thereās so much history, thereās so much talk of history. The hinge of history, moral circle expansion, these are all historical ideas, progress itself is a historical idea. So thereās definite scope to do valuable work here.
[...]
Rob Wiblin: Are there any particularly valuable questions within intellectual history that youād like to see people investigate that havenāt already come up? Weāve talked about quite a few.
Tom Moynihan: So, I think the question of the history of moral circle expansion and what are the causes that shift peopleās intuitions outside of the kind of baseline of prejudice. Because you can go back and find people arguing for various very forward-thinking moral positions earlier than that actually spilled out and became a wider movement or a wider cause. So, something mustāve happened to create that critical mass. I think that that could be interesting. The Needham question that I spoke about earlier, this question of why one civilization you have over here, itās actually far more technologically advancedā¦how they have something like a steam engine to open doors in the palaces, but just decide not to use it elsewhere. And then you have another civilization where something happens there that means that science locks in as an institution that perpetuates itself, perpetuates knowledge in a unique way.
Tom Moynihan: What are the institutions behind that? I think that thereās interesting research to be done there. Of course, and this is one that Iāve seen in various places, is researching the dynamics of lock-in. So, instances in the past where we can see clear path dependence in culture, values, et cetera. Also, again, another obvious one is studying the rise and fall of civilizations. What creates civilizational resilience? I think that making inductions from the past is dangerous because when civilizations have risen and fallen in the past, often it wasnāt a globalized technological civilization in the same way we have today, but people who have worked in this field have already kind of made that point. Tech trees, I think, are a really important and interesting place to try and look at. In a sense recreating the evolutionary tree of life, trying to do that for technology. And then that leads me to the final one that I find really interesting.
Tom Moynihan: And this comes from an idea that I got from a researcher Karim Jebari. He has, I think itās a preprint paper currently, but itās called Replaying historyās tape. And heās taking those ideas of contingency and convergence from the biological sciences and seeing if they can be meaningfully applied to civilization and cultural progress and technological progress. So, as I was saying earlier, I think we do tend to overestimate the convergence or the recurrence or repeatability of a lot of insights, ideas, technologies. And the line is of course blurred. I would really love a map of cultural progress across different cultures, civilizations, and trying to map how convergent some might be.
Tom Moynihan: And obviously the way of measuring this, and Jebari kind of puts this forward in the paper, is that if you can see a cultural practice appearing independently in lots of places, you can kind of presume that itās convergent in the same way as evolution. It becomes interesting because then when you get a more globalized society, it can appear in one place and then spread. So, thereās lots of interesting questions there I think to be had. And then, again, that can affect our judgments of how severe certain collapse events or very destructive global catastrophic risks are. So, I think thereās lots to be done there.