Over the course of 2009, discussion on the Felicifia forum (archive) started to feel like an early EA community. For example, see thread on charity choice and the applied ethics and philanthropy boards.
It’s really interesting to see, in the thread on charity choice, EmbraceUnity describing their “Utility, Attainability, and Obscurity” framework (see also this blog post from 2008) four years before Holden Karnofsky wrote about the Importance, Tractability and Neglectedness framework. I guess this is a sign that, for some reason, many of the key pieces of EA just fell into place in different locations at around the same time.
Great finding—I was an avid reader of Felicifia but do not recall stumbling upon that particular comment or the associated post. (EmbraceUnity was Edward Miller’s Felicifia username, as can be seen by consulting the archived version of Miller’s website.)
On the ITN framework, it’s also unclear to me whether the version developed by Owen Cotton-Barratt a year or so after Holden’s was influenced by those early GiveWell posts. My tentative speculation (~80%) is that Owen was at least aware of Holden’s writings, but it’s also conceivable that it was an independent discovery. It also seems unlikely to me (90%) that either Owen or Holden had encountered the Felicifia discussion. On the other hand, it’s possible (15%?) that Edward Miller’s framework reached Owen or Holden in some form via informal channels. For example, Toby Ord, who read Felicifia, may have discussed the idea with Owen.
It’s really interesting to see, in the thread on charity choice, EmbraceUnity describing their “Utility, Attainability, and Obscurity” framework (see also this blog post from 2008) four years before Holden Karnofsky wrote about the Importance, Tractability and Neglectedness framework. I guess this is a sign that, for some reason, many of the key pieces of EA just fell into place in different locations at around the same time.
Great finding—I was an avid reader of Felicifia but do not recall stumbling upon that particular comment or the associated post. (EmbraceUnity was Edward Miller’s Felicifia username, as can be seen by consulting the archived version of Miller’s website.)
On the ITN framework, it’s also unclear to me whether the version developed by Owen Cotton-Barratt a year or so after Holden’s was influenced by those early GiveWell posts. My tentative speculation (~80%) is that Owen was at least aware of Holden’s writings, but it’s also conceivable that it was an independent discovery. It also seems unlikely to me (90%) that either Owen or Holden had encountered the Felicifia discussion. On the other hand, it’s possible (15%?) that Edward Miller’s framework reached Owen or Holden in some form via informal channels. For example, Toby Ord, who read Felicifia, may have discussed the idea with Owen.