Here’s another possible—but less important and common—reason against writing posts for / sharing posts on the Forum:
It could mislead you about your fit for various things, and worsen your knowledge, models, or skills
This is the flipside of the benefits discussed in Sections 1.1 and 1.2; see those sections for some relevant thoughts
But I think it would probably be silly to worry about this, and I’m not actually aware of anyone worrying about it
It seems very unlikely to me that writing posts for, and sharing writings on, the EA Forum would predictably have a net negative effect on any given person’s self-knowledge, knowledge, models, or skills
[That’s why I ended up cutting this from the post itself]
It might happen to freakishly have a net negative effect for some people, but I think the effect would be positive in expectation for any given person
I do think writing / sharing posts on the Forum could in many cases have less of a positive effect on those variables than an alternative activity would
But that’s just a worry about opportunity cost, which I already mentioned separately
The only reason I mention this anyway just for comprehensiveness
Here’s another possible—but less important and common—reason against writing posts for / sharing posts on the Forum:
It could mislead you about your fit for various things, and worsen your knowledge, models, or skills
This is the flipside of the benefits discussed in Sections 1.1 and 1.2; see those sections for some relevant thoughts
But I think it would probably be silly to worry about this, and I’m not actually aware of anyone worrying about it
It seems very unlikely to me that writing posts for, and sharing writings on, the EA Forum would predictably have a net negative effect on any given person’s self-knowledge, knowledge, models, or skills
[That’s why I ended up cutting this from the post itself]
It might happen to freakishly have a net negative effect for some people, but I think the effect would be positive in expectation for any given person
I do think writing / sharing posts on the Forum could in many cases have less of a positive effect on those variables than an alternative activity would
But that’s just a worry about opportunity cost, which I already mentioned separately
The only reason I mention this anyway just for comprehensiveness