Epistemic status for this section: Unmitigated inside view.
and so I thought I’d try my hand at saying what I think you meant, but using less ambiguous terms. You probably didn’t just mean “I’m not using reference classes in this section,” because that’s true of most sections I’d guess. You also probably didn’t mean that you are using a gears-level model, though arguably you are using a model of some sort? Idk, could also classify it as intuition. My guess is that you meant “This is just how things seem to me,” i.e. this section doesn’t attempt to defer to anyone else or correct for any biases you might have. How does all this sound? What would you say you meant?
So what I specifically meant was: It’s interesting that the current leadership probably thinks that CSER is valuable (e.g., valuable enough to keep working at it, rather than directing their efforts somewhere else, and presumably valuable enough to absorb EA funding and talent). This presents a tricky updating problem, where I should probably average my own impressions from my shallow review with their (probably more informed) perspective. But in the review, I didn’t do that, hence the “unmitigated inside view” label.
Hmmm, this surprises me a bit because doesn’t it apply to pretty much all of your evaluations on this list? Presumably for each of them, the leadership of the org has somewhat different opinions than your independent impression, and your overall view should be an average of the two. I didn’t get the impression that you were averaging your impression with those of other org’s leadership.
I guess (p=.75) Nuño would say that the following interpretation is mostly reasonable: “inside view” here means that Nuño presents his impressions which rely a lot on stories he tells himself about various research directions being valuable or not, which others might reasonably disagree with him about.
I am thinking that because Nuño uses a simple model to estimate a fraction of researchers doing “valuable” work, the subjectivity is rooted in his takes on how valuable their individual research directions are.
[Phrasing this kinda weirdly as I want to get a visceral update on my belief in “when thinking is clearly described, I can guess that the author means by inside/outside view.” I also think that (p=.33) Nuño was just not very careful and will say something like “I have no idea what I really meant at the time of writing it.”]
Hey! Thanks for doing this, strong-upvoted.
I just wrote a post about the terms “outside view” and “inside view” and I figured I’d apply my own advice and see where it leads me. I noticed you used the term here:
and so I thought I’d try my hand at saying what I think you meant, but using less ambiguous terms. You probably didn’t just mean “I’m not using reference classes in this section,” because that’s true of most sections I’d guess. You also probably didn’t mean that you are using a gears-level model, though arguably you are using a model of some sort? Idk, could also classify it as intuition. My guess is that you meant “This is just how things seem to me,” i.e. this section doesn’t attempt to defer to anyone else or correct for any biases you might have. How does all this sound? What would you say you meant?
So what I specifically meant was: It’s interesting that the current leadership probably thinks that CSER is valuable (e.g., valuable enough to keep working at it, rather than directing their efforts somewhere else, and presumably valuable enough to absorb EA funding and talent). This presents a tricky updating problem, where I should probably average my own impressions from my shallow review with their (probably more informed) perspective. But in the review, I didn’t do that, hence the “unmitigated inside view” label.
Hmmm, this surprises me a bit because doesn’t it apply to pretty much all of your evaluations on this list? Presumably for each of them, the leadership of the org has somewhat different opinions than your independent impression, and your overall view should be an average of the two. I didn’t get the impression that you were averaging your impression with those of other org’s leadership.
Sure, but it was particularly salient to me in this case because the evaluation was so negative
Ah, OK, that makes sense.
I guess (p=.75) Nuño would say that the following interpretation is mostly reasonable: “inside view” here means that Nuño presents his impressions which rely a lot on stories he tells himself about various research directions being valuable or not, which others might reasonably disagree with him about.
I am thinking that because Nuño uses a simple model to estimate a fraction of researchers doing “valuable” work, the subjectivity is rooted in his takes on how valuable their individual research directions are.
[Phrasing this kinda weirdly as I want to get a visceral update on my belief in “when thinking is clearly described, I can guess that the author means by inside/outside view.” I also think that (p=.33) Nuño was just not very careful and will say something like “I have no idea what I really meant at the time of writing it.”]
To resolve that prediction, yes, I would say that that interpretation is correct.