Thanks for this write up. The list is quite substantial, which makes me think: do you have a list of problems you’ve considered, concluded are probably quite unpromising and therefore dissuade people from undertaking? I could imagine someone reading this and thinking “X and Y are on the list so Z, which wasn’t mentioned explicitly [but 80k would advice against], is also likely a good area”.
Hey Michael—there isn’t such a list, though we did consider and decide not to include a number of problems in the process of putting this together. I definately think that “X and Y are on the list so Z, which wasn’t mentioned explicitly, is also likely a good area” would be a bad inference! But there are also probably lots of issues that we didn’t even consider so something not being on the list is probably at best a weak negative signal. [Edit: I shouldn’t have said “at best”—it’s a weak negative signal.]
I don’t know if you guys have capacity but it might be useful for a separate post to list the problems that you considered and decided not to include, with short explanations as to why. This may reduce the probability of people independently investigating them which could save time, or increase the probability of people investigating them if they think you wrongfully excluded them which could be helpful. Just an idea
Hey jackmalde, interesting idea—though I think I’d lean against writing it. I guess the main reason is something like: There are quite a few issues to explore on the above list so if someone is searching around for something (rather than if they have something in mind already), they might be able to find an idea there. I guess despite what I said to Michael above, I do want people to see it as some positive signal if something’s on the list. Having a list of things not on the list would probably not add a lot, because the reasons would just be pretty weak things like “brief investigation + asking around didn’t make this seem compelling acc to our assumptions”. Insofar as soeone was already thinking of working on something and they saw that, they probably wouldn’t take it as much reason to change course. Does that make sense?
Hi Arden, yeah that makes sense. You’ve definitely given the EA community a lot to work on with this post so probably not worth overcomplicating things.
Thanks for this write up. The list is quite substantial, which makes me think: do you have a list of problems you’ve considered, concluded are probably quite unpromising and therefore dissuade people from undertaking? I could imagine someone reading this and thinking “X and Y are on the list so Z, which wasn’t mentioned explicitly [but 80k would advice against], is also likely a good area”.
(Just commenting to tie two conversations together: Another Forum user has now asked the related question Are there lists of causes (that seemed promising but are) known to be ineffective?, and given some arguments for why such a list might be useful.)
Hey Michael—there isn’t such a list, though we did consider and decide not to include a number of problems in the process of putting this together. I definately think that “X and Y are on the list so Z, which wasn’t mentioned explicitly, is also likely a good area” would be a bad inference! But there are also probably lots of issues that we didn’t even consider so something not being on the list is probably at best a weak negative signal. [Edit: I shouldn’t have said “at best”—it’s a weak negative signal.]
I don’t know if you guys have capacity but it might be useful for a separate post to list the problems that you considered and decided not to include, with short explanations as to why. This may reduce the probability of people independently investigating them which could save time, or increase the probability of people investigating them if they think you wrongfully excluded them which could be helpful. Just an idea
Hey jackmalde, interesting idea—though I think I’d lean against writing it. I guess the main reason is something like: There are quite a few issues to explore on the above list so if someone is searching around for something (rather than if they have something in mind already), they might be able to find an idea there. I guess despite what I said to Michael above, I do want people to see it as some positive signal if something’s on the list. Having a list of things not on the list would probably not add a lot, because the reasons would just be pretty weak things like “brief investigation + asking around didn’t make this seem compelling acc to our assumptions”. Insofar as soeone was already thinking of working on something and they saw that, they probably wouldn’t take it as much reason to change course. Does that make sense?
Hi Arden, yeah that makes sense. You’ve definitely given the EA community a lot to work on with this post so probably not worth overcomplicating things.