I would guess that weird EA ideas that were appropriately caveated would do reasonably well here, and the main negative reaction is to weird ideas that are presented overconfidently? But this is just my impression of the Forum, not a result of looking over how various posts have done.
Compare this comment with this comment. The second comment was posted about a week later. Iām glad the second comment was posted, and Iām glad the suggestion was packaged in a way that made it appealing to Forum users, but I do notice that the packaging seemed to matter a fair amount (ārigorā flavoring). I donāt think overconfidence was a major factor here.
I post a fair number of offbeat ideas like this, and they donāt generally receive much attention, which leaves me feeling demoralized. And then I wrote the grandparent comment, where I got downvoted/ādisagreevoted for asking if thereās a better place to post offbeat ideas, which is even more demoralizing. Like, what do you guys want from me?
I notice your framing
I would guess that weird EA ideas that were appropriately caveated would do reasonably well here
basically acknowledges that this is a hypothetical, and new ideas mostly donāt get posted here. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of why! Again, maybe this is an OK or even desirable state of affairs. But I wish we could at least acknowledge it.
Your comment on a comment on a quick take, suggesting suing OpenAI for violating their charter and including an argument for why. Voted to +4.
Aaronās quick take, suggesting suing OpenAI for their for-profit conversion. No argument included. Voted to +173.
I donāt see anything weird here. With the design of the site a quick take is likely to get much more attention than a nested comment on a quick take, and then when people start voting one up this snowballs because the site makes it more visible.
But even if youād posted your comment as your own quick take I think it probably wouldnāt have taken off: it doesnāt give enough context for someone seeing it out of nowhere to figure out if they think itās worth paying attention to, or enough of an explanation for what a suit would look like. You can gloss this as packaging/ārigor, I guess, but I think itās serving a useful purpose.
(I think neither posting is amazing: a few minutes with an LLM asking about what the rules are for converting 501c3s into for-profits would have helped both a lot. Iād hold that against them if they were regular posts but thatās not a standard we do, or should, hold quick takes or comments to.)
I post a fair number of offbeat ideas like this, and they donāt generally receive much attention, which leaves me feeling demoralized
In general, if you want ideas to receive attention you should expect to put in some work preparing them for other peopleās attention: gather the information that will help others evaluate them, make an argument for why these ideas are important. If you do that work, and then post as a quick take or (better, but requires more investment) top-level post, I do think youāll get attention. This is no guarantee of a positive reaction (people may disagree that youāve sufficiently made your case) but I donāt think itās a process that selects against weird ideas.
Thereās a reason people use ālow-effortā as a negative term: you pay with your own effort in a bid on other peopleās attention.
I got downvoted/ādisagreevoted for asking if thereās a better place to post offbeat ideas
Your comment starts with claims about what people want on the forum and a thesis about how to gain karma, and only gets to asking about where to post weird ideas in the last paragraph. I interpret the downvoting and disagree voting as being primarily about the first two paragraphs.
basically acknowledges that this is a hypothetical, and new ideas mostly donāt get posted here
I wasnāt trying to make a claim either way on this in my comment. Instead, I was adding a caveat that I was going by my impression of the site instead of taking the time to look for specific examples that would support or counter my claim, and so people should put less weight on my claim.
Thinking now, some example ideas that were new/āweird in the sense that they were pretty different from the lines of thought Iād seen here before but that still got attention (or at least comments /ā votes):
I guess my view is that low-effort sharing of new ideas is not rewarded/āengaged with, and is undersupplied relative to whatās optimal. When I have a new idea that seems like it could have a big impact, and I quickly post it on the EA Forum, itās much more out of a sense of duty than a sense of excitement.
I see the āLetās think about slowing down AIā post as support for my position. We shouldnāt have required a 45-minute read by a senior community member before slowing down AI was taken seriously as a possibility. In a world where Katja is too busy to make that effort-post, I think thereās a chance that EA takes far longer to consider a pivot.
I think high-effort contributions for new ideas arenāt necessarily optimal. I put a fair amount of effort into this post, which looks like a big waste of time in retrospect. In this case, Linch explicitly told me I put too much effort in, and his short comment to that effect got more upvotes than my effort-comment.
The upvote-snowballing mechanism means a small difference in the rate of vote-gaining creates a large difference in attention. It seems like the top 10% of vote-gainers tend to be high-effort, non-controversial stuff, which ideally has some sort of prestige affiliation (ā10 pages defending a thesis that is obviousā). So we see a lot of that stuff on the Forum. People copy whatās upvoted, and the Forum ends up rather bland.
The ā10 pages defending a thesis that is obviousā-type posts tend to be ones where the author tries to anticipate and respond to every possible criticism or deficiency. An author canāt necessarily predict in advance which axes readers will want more effort on. If you try to predict and address them all, I suspect that contributes to bland writing. Itād be better to address those issues through dialogue than monologue.
Maybe there is a good place for low-effort sharing of new EA ideas elsewhere, and Iām not aware of it. But there does seem to be a suspicious lack of new ideas on the Forumāespecially given how fast the world is changing, which should naturally produce new ideas for how to do good. I think lack of new ideas on the Forum is evidence that thereās no good place for low-effort sharing of new EA ideas elsewhere. If EA was good at low-effort sharing of new ideas elsewhere, I would expect some of those ideas to trickle into high-effort ānew ideaā posts on the Forum, and Iām largely not seeing those posts.
I would guess that weird EA ideas that were appropriately caveated would do reasonably well here, and the main negative reaction is to weird ideas that are presented overconfidently? But this is just my impression of the Forum, not a result of looking over how various posts have done.
Compare this comment with this comment. The second comment was posted about a week later. Iām glad the second comment was posted, and Iām glad the suggestion was packaged in a way that made it appealing to Forum users, but I do notice that the packaging seemed to matter a fair amount (ārigorā flavoring). I donāt think overconfidence was a major factor here.
I post a fair number of offbeat ideas like this, and they donāt generally receive much attention, which leaves me feeling demoralized. And then I wrote the grandparent comment, where I got downvoted/ādisagreevoted for asking if thereās a better place to post offbeat ideas, which is even more demoralizing. Like, what do you guys want from me?
I notice your framing
basically acknowledges that this is a hypothetical, and new ideas mostly donāt get posted here. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of why! Again, maybe this is an OK or even desirable state of affairs. But I wish we could at least acknowledge it.
Looking at the two comments, I see:
Your comment on a comment on a quick take, suggesting suing OpenAI for violating their charter and including an argument for why. Voted to +4.
Aaronās quick take, suggesting suing OpenAI for their for-profit conversion. No argument included. Voted to +173.
I donāt see anything weird here. With the design of the site a quick take is likely to get much more attention than a nested comment on a quick take, and then when people start voting one up this snowballs because the site makes it more visible.
But even if youād posted your comment as your own quick take I think it probably wouldnāt have taken off: it doesnāt give enough context for someone seeing it out of nowhere to figure out if they think itās worth paying attention to, or enough of an explanation for what a suit would look like. You can gloss this as packaging/ārigor, I guess, but I think itās serving a useful purpose.
(I think neither posting is amazing: a few minutes with an LLM asking about what the rules are for converting 501c3s into for-profits would have helped both a lot. Iād hold that against them if they were regular posts but thatās not a standard we do, or should, hold quick takes or comments to.)
In general, if you want ideas to receive attention you should expect to put in some work preparing them for other peopleās attention: gather the information that will help others evaluate them, make an argument for why these ideas are important. If you do that work, and then post as a quick take or (better, but requires more investment) top-level post, I do think youāll get attention. This is no guarantee of a positive reaction (people may disagree that youāve sufficiently made your case) but I donāt think itās a process that selects against weird ideas.
Thereās a reason people use ālow-effortā as a negative term: you pay with your own effort in a bid on other peopleās attention.
Your comment starts with claims about what people want on the forum and a thesis about how to gain karma, and only gets to asking about where to post weird ideas in the last paragraph. I interpret the downvoting and disagree voting as being primarily about the first two paragraphs.
I wasnāt trying to make a claim either way on this in my comment. Instead, I was adding a caveat that I was going by my impression of the site instead of taking the time to look for specific examples that would support or counter my claim, and so people should put less weight on my claim.
Thinking now, some example ideas that were new/āweird in the sense that they were pretty different from the lines of thought Iād seen here before but that still got attention (or at least comments /ā votes):
Top level post: Letās think about slowing down AI
Quick take: EA Awards
Comment: efforts to block anti-ozone bill being harmful
I guess my view is that low-effort sharing of new ideas is not rewarded/āengaged with, and is undersupplied relative to whatās optimal. When I have a new idea that seems like it could have a big impact, and I quickly post it on the EA Forum, itās much more out of a sense of duty than a sense of excitement.
I see the āLetās think about slowing down AIā post as support for my position. We shouldnāt have required a 45-minute read by a senior community member before slowing down AI was taken seriously as a possibility. In a world where Katja is too busy to make that effort-post, I think thereās a chance that EA takes far longer to consider a pivot.
I think high-effort contributions for new ideas arenāt necessarily optimal. I put a fair amount of effort into this post, which looks like a big waste of time in retrospect. In this case, Linch explicitly told me I put too much effort in, and his short comment to that effect got more upvotes than my effort-comment.
The upvote-snowballing mechanism means a small difference in the rate of vote-gaining creates a large difference in attention. It seems like the top 10% of vote-gainers tend to be high-effort, non-controversial stuff, which ideally has some sort of prestige affiliation (ā10 pages defending a thesis that is obviousā). So we see a lot of that stuff on the Forum. People copy whatās upvoted, and the Forum ends up rather bland.
The ā10 pages defending a thesis that is obviousā-type posts tend to be ones where the author tries to anticipate and respond to every possible criticism or deficiency. An author canāt necessarily predict in advance which axes readers will want more effort on. If you try to predict and address them all, I suspect that contributes to bland writing. Itād be better to address those issues through dialogue than monologue.
Maybe there is a good place for low-effort sharing of new EA ideas elsewhere, and Iām not aware of it. But there does seem to be a suspicious lack of new ideas on the Forumāespecially given how fast the world is changing, which should naturally produce new ideas for how to do good. I think lack of new ideas on the Forum is evidence that thereās no good place for low-effort sharing of new EA ideas elsewhere. If EA was good at low-effort sharing of new ideas elsewhere, I would expect some of those ideas to trickle into high-effort ānew ideaā posts on the Forum, and Iām largely not seeing those posts.