Hello Nathan! Thank you for your reply! I appreciate the honesty and your comments are very clear. Allow me to elaborate:
1. Yes! The Friends scene where a character has a plan to make a plan (together) is exactly what I mean! I feel we are doing too little planning. Why wouldn’t this be a valid argument? It is like when you’re on a holiday, you’ve just arrived and everyone just starts doing something. One person starts building a tent, someone else is going for the dishes. You notice that everyone seems to forget to go to the camping owner to see if you’re even allowed to set up your tent. It also seems that we might need to go shopping before we start cooking. I think the right thing to do in those circumstances would be to call everyone together and make a plan together.
2a. Once again, your comment is very clear. If we already have 4.9 million books, why write another one? My point is this: even if there 4.9 million books, their content does not seem to have reached the EA community. What I’d like to see is to have a dedicated (EA) team find (and summarize) the best books and figure out the implications for EA, as I (tried to) describe in appendix 1.
2b. You suggest many different topics of research. That’s great. I agree that all of these are very much worth studying. It was never my intention to limit the scope of research (on the contrary!) and I think you mention worthwhile avenues. You also mention ideas other than research. I’m not a fan of those. I feel the comparative advantage of EA is “think first, act afterwards.” Also I feel that relief for refugees is lower in scope (and neglectedness).
Your summary does capture the essence of my article. However, I feel it doesn’t do it justice. I still feel that noticing that EA seems to be having a “act first, think later” mindset (instead of our comparative advantage “think first, act later”) is extremely important. And that appendix 1 offers both an indication of where our thinking is lacking, and indication of how to start improving our thinking.
Hello Nathan! Thank you for your reply! I appreciate the honesty and your comments are very clear. Allow me to elaborate:
1. Yes! The Friends scene where a character has a plan to make a plan (together) is exactly what I mean! I feel we are doing too little planning. Why wouldn’t this be a valid argument? It is like when you’re on a holiday, you’ve just arrived and everyone just starts doing something. One person starts building a tent, someone else is going for the dishes. You notice that everyone seems to forget to go to the camping owner to see if you’re even allowed to set up your tent. It also seems that we might need to go shopping before we start cooking. I think the right thing to do in those circumstances would be to call everyone together and make a plan together.
2a. Once again, your comment is very clear. If we already have 4.9 million books, why write another one? My point is this: even if there 4.9 million books, their content does not seem to have reached the EA community. What I’d like to see is to have a dedicated (EA) team find (and summarize) the best books and figure out the implications for EA, as I (tried to) describe in appendix 1.
2b. You suggest many different topics of research. That’s great. I agree that all of these are very much worth studying. It was never my intention to limit the scope of research (on the contrary!) and I think you mention worthwhile avenues. You also mention ideas other than research. I’m not a fan of those. I feel the comparative advantage of EA is “think first, act afterwards.” Also I feel that relief for refugees is lower in scope (and neglectedness).
Your summary does capture the essence of my article. However, I feel it doesn’t do it justice. I still feel that noticing that EA seems to be having a “act first, think later” mindset (instead of our comparative advantage “think first, act later”) is extremely important. And that appendix 1 offers both an indication of where our thinking is lacking, and indication of how to start improving our thinking.