[I think the disagreements we have here don’t matter much. That said...]
I think the point about suspicious convergence is correct. I also think it’s very reasonable to claim that B. Obama’s memoir will be more useful to the average EA than many of the things on my list—especially the things which are rated as below average usefulness to me.
But I still think it’s worth saying “more valuable to the average EA” rather than “clearly more valuable from an EA perspective”. One reason is related to precisely the point about intellectual/worldview homogeneity and echo chambers which you highlighted; I think we should be careful about saying things that could easily sound to people like “all EAs should do X”.
(This is also related to issues like 80k highlighting a career pathway or problem area as particularly important on the margin on average, and there sometimes being an overreaction to this, including people switching out of other good paths towards this new path that isn’t a good fit for them. My impression is that 80k is now more careful to add caveats and stuff to reduce how much this happens.
Of course, the stakes are far lower for a Forum comment, about books rather than careers, deep into a very large thread!)
I agree that you’ve emphasized that your list should not be taken as authoritative in several places. Yet I stand by my claim that one can reasonably interpret Foster Wallace and other titles further down the list as recommended reading.
I’ve emphasised not just that it’s not authoritative but also that it’s “not quite a list of book recommendations”, and that it includes things I didn’t find useful. I think it’s plausible that someone could interpret the bottom ranked book as a recommendation, but not that that would be reasonable—they’d have to have ignored text right near the top and right below that recommendation.
[I think the disagreements we have here don’t matter much. That said...]
I think the point about suspicious convergence is correct. I also think it’s very reasonable to claim that B. Obama’s memoir will be more useful to the average EA than many of the things on my list—especially the things which are rated as below average usefulness to me.
But I still think it’s worth saying “more valuable to the average EA” rather than “clearly more valuable from an EA perspective”. One reason is related to precisely the point about intellectual/worldview homogeneity and echo chambers which you highlighted; I think we should be careful about saying things that could easily sound to people like “all EAs should do X”.
(This is also related to issues like 80k highlighting a career pathway or problem area as particularly important on the margin on average, and there sometimes being an overreaction to this, including people switching out of other good paths towards this new path that isn’t a good fit for them. My impression is that 80k is now more careful to add caveats and stuff to reduce how much this happens.
Of course, the stakes are far lower for a Forum comment, about books rather than careers, deep into a very large thread!)
I’ve emphasised not just that it’s not authoritative but also that it’s “not quite a list of book recommendations”, and that it includes things I didn’t find useful. I think it’s plausible that someone could interpret the bottom ranked book as a recommendation, but not that that would be reasonable—they’d have to have ignored text right near the top and right below that recommendation.