Error

I have a similar knee-jerk reaction whenever I read a post “on research”, so I wrote up my experience with different types of research: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​pHnMXaKEstJGcKP2m/​​different-types-of-research-are-different

(I’m not at all trying to imply that Rose should have caveated more in her post.)

This seems like a useful point, thanks!

It makes me want to give a clarification: the reflections above are just the most important things I happened to learn—not a list of generally most important points to consider when testing fit for research. I think I’d need more research experience to write a good version of the latter thing (though I think my list probably overlaps with it somewhat).

I also want to respond to “you should definitely try [...] before you write off research in general”. I think I agree with this, conditional on it being a sensible idea for you to be testing your fit for research in general in the first place. Some thoughts:

• There are loads and loads of other important things to do that are not research. For lots of people I imagine there being more information in switching tack completely and trying a few new things, than in working their way through a long list of different kinds of research.

• The space of research is too big for it to be sensible to test your fit for everything, so you need to narrow down to things that seem especially fun/​especially likely to be a good fit for you.

• I particularly care about this because I think research has inflated prestige in the EA community, and so there’s a danger of people spending too much time testing fit for different kinds when really what they want is approval. I think the ideal solution here isn’t ‘keep testing your fit till you find some kind of research you’re good at’ - it’s ‘the norms of the community change such that there’s more social reward for things other than research’.

Thanks, I enjoyed that post (and it’s quite short, for people considering whether to read).