I think this is a really cool work/parable: “That Alien Message.” It’s by Eliezer Yudkowsky, so I don’t know if it’s too well known to count, but it still seems worth collecting in this context. (The topic, or “relevance” from an EA point of view, of the story is a spoiler, but should be pretty clear.)
There are several Yudkowsky stories that involve EA-adjacent elements, although perhaps all of them are too well-known to count—“Three Worlds Collide” is probably the most complex exploration of abstract ethical ideas, although it’s more making a statement about the complexity of human value systems than about taking action in an EA direction. It’s also a complex multi-chapter story too long to read in one sitting.
There are also Yudkowsky’s “Dath Ilan” stories, which take place in a semi-utopian world where civilization is much better at coordination. They’re full of interesting ideas, especially relevant to the “Improving Institutional Decisionmaking” wing of the EA movement, but they’re also somewhat scattershot exercises in world-building mixed with jokes and opinion, rather than a tightly -constructed story.
I think the most contest-relevant Yudkowsky story is probably “The Sword of Good”—it’s short, and it features a protaganist who goes from blindly accepting the status quo, to suddenly realizing the injustice of all the needless suffering that persists in the world. This feels very relevant to EA, and would probably strike a chord with the experiences of many people in the “Global Health & Development” and “Farmed Animal Welfare” wings of the movement. The biggest downside of the story is that the EA message only shows up as a plot twist in the last quarter of the story—so it wouldn’t make for good public reading at conferences, since people would spend the first 75% of their time wondering why they were being subjected to a random fantasy tale.
I think this is a really cool work/parable: “That Alien Message.” It’s by Eliezer Yudkowsky, so I don’t know if it’s too well known to count, but it still seems worth collecting in this context. (The topic, or “relevance” from an EA point of view, of the story is a spoiler, but should be pretty clear.)
There are several Yudkowsky stories that involve EA-adjacent elements, although perhaps all of them are too well-known to count—“Three Worlds Collide” is probably the most complex exploration of abstract ethical ideas, although it’s more making a statement about the complexity of human value systems than about taking action in an EA direction. It’s also a complex multi-chapter story too long to read in one sitting.
There are also Yudkowsky’s “Dath Ilan” stories, which take place in a semi-utopian world where civilization is much better at coordination. They’re full of interesting ideas, especially relevant to the “Improving Institutional Decisionmaking” wing of the EA movement, but they’re also somewhat scattershot exercises in world-building mixed with jokes and opinion, rather than a tightly -constructed story.
I think the most contest-relevant Yudkowsky story is probably “The Sword of Good”—it’s short, and it features a protaganist who goes from blindly accepting the status quo, to suddenly realizing the injustice of all the needless suffering that persists in the world. This feels very relevant to EA, and would probably strike a chord with the experiences of many people in the “Global Health & Development” and “Farmed Animal Welfare” wings of the movement. The biggest downside of the story is that the EA message only shows up as a plot twist in the last quarter of the story—so it wouldn’t make for good public reading at conferences, since people would spend the first 75% of their time wondering why they were being subjected to a random fantasy tale.