Hello there!
I have written a few blog posts about ideas related to social change (which might be related to EA in one way or another) and I have started to question whether or not I should keep writing them. Sometimes I feel that I need to make an impact with the blog posts I write or they won’t be useful.
I don’t really intend on making a large impact like Peter Singer (Animal liberation and The life you can save), Nick Bostrom (Superintelligence) or even Bryan Caplan (Myth of the Rational voter and The case against Education), since I’m a newbie at writing and don’t have the patience (yet) to fully read scientific research (if I am lucky to be able to access them).
But rather, I write my blog posts because 1) they are rather engaging to write, in a similar way to how I make my computer games, 2) they encourage me to develop research skills and write notes, 3) I learn more about what I am writing i.e. Cryptocurrency or China.
I’ve listened to a number of EA related podcasts that mention writing EA-related blogs being a good way to get into EA and for perhaps meeting fellow EAs too. As of writing this, I am listening to the 80k hours podcast with Lewis Bollard and he mentions that:
I would worry less about, you know, is [writing a blog post] initially going to really contribute to the literature or, you know, provide groundbreaking insights and more how can this really help, help me to gain skills and to hone my skills further.
Which puts me at ease a bit when I get feelings of impostor syndrome whenever I post posts at least somewhat related to EA. But still, I do start to constantly stress about whether my posts generate unintended controversy or I inadvertently portray a certain cause in a very distorted manner—i.e. how the EA community in its early days often, rather aggressively, encouraged “Earning to give” rather than other equally as good, if not, better options.
If it be that it would be best for me not to write blog posts anymore, there are still other methods I pursue, or consider pursuing of getting into the EA movement, like listening to the 80,000 hours podcast, donating money to effective charities, make efforts to becoming vegan/vegetarian and then some.
I would love to hear what you think!
That’s all from me!
Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. Most people’s early creative work will not be their best work, so don’t have high expectations at the beginning. I would focus on learning and having fun while you write.
thanks for the comment!
i would say that the biggest bottleneck is actually thinking up what issue to write about, i do not want it to be about a problem that gains too much attention, neither do i want it to be about something that is far too obscure.
that being said, i think it would be decent idea to write about issues talked about in the EA community like AI or animal cruelty even though increasing amounts of EAs are piling on to these issues.
i have written about things that aren’t talked about as much in the EA community such as the value of cryptocurrency and how it could eliviate poverty and bypass corrupt governments. these topics would be more interesting to cover on a personal level since there are not many EAs talking about them and it could give me a chance to not only learn more about the topic but also approach it from a utilitarian perspective—even if there are more pressing problems.