First, yes, my overall point was about academic and theoretical work in general, and yes, as you pointed out, in large part this relates to how object level work on specific cause areas is undervalued relative to “meta” work—but I tried to pick even more concrete areas and organizations because I think that being more concrete was critical, even though it was nearly certain to have more contentious specific objections. And perhaps I’m wrong, and the examples I chose aren’t actually overvalued—though that was not my impression. I also want to note that I’m more concerned about trajectory rather than numbers—putting aside intra-EA allocation of effort, if all areas of EA continue to grow, I think many get less attention than they deserve at a societal level, I think that the theoretical work should grow less than other areas, and far less than they seem poised to grow.
And as noted in another thread, regarding work on infinite ethics and other theoretical work, I got a very different impression at the recent GPI conference—though I clearly have a somewhat different view of what EAs work on compared to many others since I don’t ever manage to go to EAG. (Which they only ever have over the weekend, unfortunately.) Relatedly, on rationality techniques, I see tons of people writing about them, and have seen people who have general funding pending lots of time thinking and writing about it, though I will agree there is less recently, but (despite knowing people who looked for funding,) no-one seems interested in funding more applied work on building out rationality techniques in curricula, or even analysis of what works.
Lastly, on your final point, my example was across the domains, but I do see the same when talking to people about funding for theoretical work on biosafety, compared to applied policy or safety work. But I am hesitant to give specific examples because the ones I would provide are things other people have applied for funding on, whereas the two I listed were things I directly worked on and looked for funding for.
First, yes, my overall point was about academic and theoretical work in general, and yes, as you pointed out, in large part this relates to how object level work on specific cause areas is undervalued relative to “meta” work—but I tried to pick even more concrete areas and organizations because I think that being more concrete was critical, even though it was nearly certain to have more contentious specific objections. And perhaps I’m wrong, and the examples I chose aren’t actually overvalued—though that was not my impression. I also want to note that I’m more concerned about trajectory rather than numbers—putting aside intra-EA allocation of effort, if all areas of EA continue to grow, I think many get less attention than they deserve at a societal level, I think that the theoretical work should grow less than other areas, and far less than they seem poised to grow.
And as noted in another thread, regarding work on infinite ethics and other theoretical work, I got a very different impression at the recent GPI conference—though I clearly have a somewhat different view of what EAs work on compared to many others since I don’t ever manage to go to EAG. (Which they only ever have over the weekend, unfortunately.) Relatedly, on rationality techniques, I see tons of people writing about them, and have seen people who have general funding pending lots of time thinking and writing about it, though I will agree there is less recently, but (despite knowing people who looked for funding,) no-one seems interested in funding more applied work on building out rationality techniques in curricula, or even analysis of what works.
Lastly, on your final point, my example was across the domains, but I do see the same when talking to people about funding for theoretical work on biosafety, compared to applied policy or safety work. But I am hesitant to give specific examples because the ones I would provide are things other people have applied for funding on, whereas the two I listed were things I directly worked on and looked for funding for.