I’m really pleased to see so many people coalescing around this post. I’m enormously blessed to be amongst people thinking about the big problems with such openness, passion, and energy.
Int/a correctly identifies that EA has imperfections. But the proposals, replacing specificity with multidimensionality, putting process over goals, substituting metrics with sensing, don’t fix those imperfections. They mostly obfuscate them by disallowing comparison and avoid failure by never choosing between options. I think the main problem int/a has with EA is not an EA problem but an imperfect-world problem.
EA’s singleminded focus on specificity, measurability, and goal-orientedness is the painful, imperfect method that turns values and caring and messy big problems into singular choices and actions. Yes, the metrics are always flawed. Yes, you cut off possibilities when you commit to a direction. That’s the cost of actually acting in the world, and I don’t think int/a has provided a better path forward.
I may be being ungenerous, but my aim is to cut through to my biggest concern and look for correction. What int/a offers is staying in the ideation phase. More intuition, more holism, more systems thinking, more openness, more frames. Every single recommendation is widening, sourcing, and uncontroversial. These are a vital part of the opening process. But as far as I can tell, int/a does not move past enriching understanding, and does not seem concerned with what that is giving up. At some point the unpleasant part has to come: splitting apart, letting go of options, committing to something that might be wrong. EA isn’t limiting itself to specificity and comparison out of compulsion. It sees these as necessary stages. Pleading for more modalities does not get you to a tradeoff-free world! At some point you have to demonstrate a better outcome.
The complexity science and metacrisis communities have said “see the whole system, keep entanglements, don’t reduce” and then hit the entirely predictable problem of being unable to make much headway. They have produced real analytical tools, but the endpoint actions remain sparse. Is EA’s predisposition towards action more harmful than int/a’s moving at the speed of wisdom? I genuinely think EA’s greater bias toward action has produced more good than harm. But I can see arguing for change.
What int/a does do well, and EA should listen to, is their unearthing root problems, catching incomplete definitions, calls for opening up, and providing more frames. Int/a can teach us greater things to get narrowed toward. I don’t think its best seen as a competing method. It needs to be handed off to EA-style problem-solving, and should be resurfaced periodically too.
I’m really pleased to see so many people coalescing around this post. I’m enormously blessed to be amongst people thinking about the big problems with such openness, passion, and energy.
Int/a correctly identifies that EA has imperfections. But the proposals, replacing specificity with multidimensionality, putting process over goals, substituting metrics with sensing, don’t fix those imperfections. They mostly obfuscate them by disallowing comparison and avoid failure by never choosing between options. I think the main problem int/a has with EA is not an EA problem but an imperfect-world problem.
EA’s singleminded focus on specificity, measurability, and goal-orientedness is the painful, imperfect method that turns values and caring and messy big problems into singular choices and actions. Yes, the metrics are always flawed. Yes, you cut off possibilities when you commit to a direction. That’s the cost of actually acting in the world, and I don’t think int/a has provided a better path forward.
I may be being ungenerous, but my aim is to cut through to my biggest concern and look for correction. What int/a offers is staying in the ideation phase. More intuition, more holism, more systems thinking, more openness, more frames. Every single recommendation is widening, sourcing, and uncontroversial. These are a vital part of the opening process. But as far as I can tell, int/a does not move past enriching understanding, and does not seem concerned with what that is giving up. At some point the unpleasant part has to come: splitting apart, letting go of options, committing to something that might be wrong. EA isn’t limiting itself to specificity and comparison out of compulsion. It sees these as necessary stages. Pleading for more modalities does not get you to a tradeoff-free world! At some point you have to demonstrate a better outcome.
The complexity science and metacrisis communities have said “see the whole system, keep entanglements, don’t reduce” and then hit the entirely predictable problem of being unable to make much headway. They have produced real analytical tools, but the endpoint actions remain sparse. Is EA’s predisposition towards action more harmful than int/a’s moving at the speed of wisdom? I genuinely think EA’s greater bias toward action has produced more good than harm. But I can see arguing for change.
What int/a does do well, and EA should listen to, is their unearthing root problems, catching incomplete definitions, calls for opening up, and providing more frames. Int/a can teach us greater things to get narrowed toward. I don’t think its best seen as a competing method. It needs to be handed off to EA-style problem-solving, and should be resurfaced periodically too.