Thanks -I think this is a good point and something to watch out for people not feeling tokenized. Also, again, I’m not necessarily advocacting for “strong community norms”—I was not saying we always need to have complete diversity everywhere.
In this specific case I was not very worried about this because:
There are 50+ books here including those linked to (as opposed to say 10), so there’s a bunch of reading by non-white men that clearly dominates this reading list. I’m not recommending people read the Obama’s memoirs or Thinking in Bets over David Foster Wallace, the Hungry Brain, or Moral Mazes etc. for the sake of more representation—they’re just clearly more valuable to read from a EA point of view.
Relatedly, some of the books are arbitrary because they’re personal choices by Beckstead etc. - based also lists that are old recommendations from their personal websites. For instance, I suspect ‘Consider the Lobster’ etc is only on there because Nick Beckstead recommended it years ago to read “for fun”, which Wiblin then recommended, which is now recommended here… it’s just a bit echo chamber-y.
[This comment of mine focuses just on two specific statements of yours which aren’t very related to the topic of demographic diversity; i.e., this comment is sort-of a tangent from the main point of the thread.]
I’m not recommending people read the Obama’s memoirs or Thinking in Bets over David Foster Wallace, the Hungry Brain, or Moral Mazes etc. for the sake of more representation—they’re just clearly more valuable to read from a EA point of view.
FWIW, I started listening to Barack Obama’s memoir after you mentioned it the other day and I’m now a quarter of the way through, and currently it seems likely that it won’t end up seeming as useful for me as Moral Mazes or The Hungry Brain. I’m very much enjoying it—he’s an excellent writer and narrator, and his story is very interesting, and I’m very likely to recommend it. But so far it doesn’t seem to be substantially updating my beliefs or my frameworks for viewing the world.
And in general, I think “clearly more valuable to read from an EA point of view” is a quite strong claim, given how much EAs will differ in what they already know about and what they are working on or will work on in future. I’d be comfortable saying “[book 1] would be very likely more valuable for most EAs to read than [book 2]” in some relatively extreme cases, like Superforecasting vs Consider the Lobster, but not just “clearly more valuable”, and not for more balanced cases like Moral Mazes vs B. Obama’s memoir.
I do think it’s almost certain that I’ll end up having found B. Obama’s memoir much more useful than Consider the Lobster. (Also more enjoyable and interesting.)
But note that Consider the Lobster is ranked very last out of all 48 EA-relevant books I’ve read since learning of EA. And I say “To be honest, I’m not sure why Wiblin recommended this”, and also “This is not quite a post of book recommendations, because [...] I list all EA-relevant books I’ve read, including those that I didn’t find very useful”. So it isn’t the case that Consider the Lobster “is now recommended here”; my mention of Consider the Lobster is actually an instance of my reported views differing from those in Beckstead and Wiblin’s lists.
Obama’s memoir [… ] won’t end up seeming as useful for me as [...] The Hungry Brain
I agree what’s most useful to a person is to an extent a function of their background. I agree that there are edge cases (Moral Mazes vs. Obama). But I’m standing by my strong claim that Obama’s memoir and some of my other recommendations as clearly more useful than the Hungry Brain and some others on your list. It is implied that this holds true for the average reader. One of the reasons for this is that some of these recommendations are based on arbitrary personal recommendations of audiobooks specifically (from a few years ago when there weren’t even that many good things on Audible). It would be suspicious convergence if the Jobs biography recommendation, which is likely based on an 8-year-old recommendation by Muehlhauser, should still be ranked highly for EAs to read.
it isn’t the case that Consider the Lobster “is now recommended here”
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 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.
Thanks -I think this is a good point and something to watch out for people not feeling tokenized. Also, again, I’m not necessarily advocacting for “strong community norms”—I was not saying we always need to have complete diversity everywhere.
In this specific case I was not very worried about this because:
There are 50+ books here including those linked to (as opposed to say 10), so there’s a bunch of reading by non-white men that clearly dominates this reading list. I’m not recommending people read the Obama’s memoirs or Thinking in Bets over David Foster Wallace, the Hungry Brain, or Moral Mazes etc. for the sake of more representation—they’re just clearly more valuable to read from a EA point of view.
Relatedly, some of the books are arbitrary because they’re personal choices by Beckstead etc. - based also lists that are old recommendations from their personal websites. For instance, I suspect ‘Consider the Lobster’ etc is only on there because Nick Beckstead recommended it years ago to read “for fun”, which Wiblin then recommended, which is now recommended here… it’s just a bit echo chamber-y.
[This comment of mine focuses just on two specific statements of yours which aren’t very related to the topic of demographic diversity; i.e., this comment is sort-of a tangent from the main point of the thread.]
FWIW, I started listening to Barack Obama’s memoir after you mentioned it the other day and I’m now a quarter of the way through, and currently it seems likely that it won’t end up seeming as useful for me as Moral Mazes or The Hungry Brain. I’m very much enjoying it—he’s an excellent writer and narrator, and his story is very interesting, and I’m very likely to recommend it. But so far it doesn’t seem to be substantially updating my beliefs or my frameworks for viewing the world.
And in general, I think “clearly more valuable to read from an EA point of view” is a quite strong claim, given how much EAs will differ in what they already know about and what they are working on or will work on in future. I’d be comfortable saying “[book 1] would be very likely more valuable for most EAs to read than [book 2]” in some relatively extreme cases, like Superforecasting vs Consider the Lobster, but not just “clearly more valuable”, and not for more balanced cases like Moral Mazes vs B. Obama’s memoir.
I do think it’s almost certain that I’ll end up having found B. Obama’s memoir much more useful than Consider the Lobster. (Also more enjoyable and interesting.)
But note that Consider the Lobster is ranked very last out of all 48 EA-relevant books I’ve read since learning of EA. And I say “To be honest, I’m not sure why Wiblin recommended this”, and also “This is not quite a post of book recommendations, because [...] I list all EA-relevant books I’ve read, including those that I didn’t find very useful”. So it isn’t the case that Consider the Lobster “is now recommended here”; my mention of Consider the Lobster is actually an instance of my reported views differing from those in Beckstead and Wiblin’s lists.
I agree what’s most useful to a person is to an extent a function of their background. I agree that there are edge cases (Moral Mazes vs. Obama). But I’m standing by my strong claim that Obama’s memoir and some of my other recommendations as clearly more useful than the Hungry Brain and some others on your list. It is implied that this holds true for the average reader. One of the reasons for this is that some of these recommendations are based on arbitrary personal recommendations of audiobooks specifically (from a few years ago when there weren’t even that many good things on Audible). It would be suspicious convergence if the Jobs biography recommendation, which is likely based on an 8-year-old recommendation by Muehlhauser, should still be ranked highly for EAs to read.
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 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.