(I think CSER has struggled to get funding for a some of its work, but this seems like a special case so I don’t think it’s much of a counter argument)
I think if this claim is true it’s less because of motivated reasoning arguments/status of interesting work, and more because object level research is correlated with a bunch of things that make it harder to fund.
I still don’t think I actually buy this claim though, it seems if anything easier to get funding to do prosaic alignment/strategy type work than theory (for example).
(I think CSER has struggled to get funding for a some of its work, but this seems like a special case so I don’t think it’s much of a counter argument)
I think if this claim is true it’s less because of motivated reasoning arguments/status of interesting work, and more because object level research is correlated with a bunch of things that make it harder to fund.
I still don’t think I actually buy this claim though, it seems if anything easier to get funding to do prosaic alignment/strategy type work than theory (for example).