Dave Cortright

Dis­cov­er­ing Men­tal Health

• Dave Cortright 8 May 2023 15:52 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: freedomandutility’s comment on: Story of a ca­reer/​men­tal health failure

  That’s true but in my experience the two are related. Things you care about you’ll be better at and vice versa. The protagonist from Good Will Hunting is the exception, not the rule

• Dave Cortright 5 May 2023 5:17 UTC

  3 points

  2

  in reply to: MvK’s comment on: Story of a ca­reer/​men­tal health failure

  Sure, I’m all for trial and error. But the key is to “fail fast.” If you’re white-knuckling it—or even just drifting along not really engaged—for months on end, it’s time to make a change.

• Dave Cortright 3 May 2023 17:56 UTC

  11 points

  11

  on: Story of a ca­reer/​men­tal health failure

  I see elements of a common story in EA: I’m ok at X and EA needs more X, so that’s what I’ll do, even thought I’m not super passionate about it. The value to the world will make up for my lack of enthusiasm. I will make a sacrifice for the greater good.

  This is a noble ideal, but in practice, I’ve never seen it sustained over the long term. There are a lot of ways to contribute to EA, and while some on paper might look more effective than others, intrinsic motivation dwarfs any of those differences. As long as you are choosing from the options within EA (or whatever you feel is effective), finalizing based on your internal compass is the way to go.

  Thanks for sharing your story. I’m confident it will help others “fail faster” and avoid spending too long on a path that doesn’t work for them.

• Dave Cortright 2 May 2023 14:11 UTC

  3 points

  0

  on: Re­duc­ing long-term risks from malev­olent actors

  Big Think just posted a video about improving leader selection by screening for psychopathy including narcissism…

• Dave Cortright 2 May 2023 0:24 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: DaveC’s Shortform

  Seems like this is important, neglected, and possibly tractable. Is there anyone out there working on screening leaders for psychopathy?

• Dave Cortright 24 Apr 2023 4:13 UTC

  1 point

  0

  on: DaveC’s Shortform

  I’ve been working on a logical, science-based definition of the arbitrary race labels^[1] we’ve assigned to humans. The most succinct definition I’ve come up with is evolutionary physiological acclimatization. Essentially, the bodies of the descendants of people living in an environment with specific climate attributes and trends will become more adapted to that environment. For example, the darker skin, larger noses, and bigger lips of people of African descent helped their ancestors survive in the intense sunlight and heat.^[2] Ironically, we have migrated to parts of the world where our physiology is mismatched with the environment.

  Race is fundamentally an artificial construct that helped people in positions of wealth and power protect their place. They chose visible superficial traits to make it easier to delineate the in-group (whom the law protects but does not bind) from the out-group (whom the law binds but does not protect).^[3]

  I believe it’s necessary to acknowledge what race was and what it actually is if we are to move to a world where we truly treat all people as equals.

  1. ^

     The Pocahontas exception

  2. ^

     Why do African Americans have big lips?

  3. ^

     Wilhoit’s Law

• Dave Cortright 24 Apr 2023 3:21 UTC

  1 point

  0

  on: DaveC’s Shortform

  Imposter syndrome is innately illogical. It presumes that everyone else either has poor judgment, or they see the truth but is going along with the deception that you aren’t capable of your current position. Poor judgment or “going along to get along” may be the case for any given individual, but when you add up all of the people in the group you interact with, it is statistically improbable, or it would require a Truman Show level of coordination to execute.

  The antidote to imposter syndrome is trust. Trust in others to make fair and honest assessments of you and your capabilities. And trust in yourself and the objective successes you’ve achieved to reach your current place.

In­tro­duc­ing the Men­tal Health Roadmap Series

• Dave Cortright 5 Apr 2023 15:00 UTC

  1 point

  0

  in reply to: Rasool’s comment on: One EA’s Per­spec­tive on Depression

  Thanks for the info! I fixed the broken link to Eric Barker’s article on the Grant Study. Dr. Robert Waldinger—the current director of the study—just published a book called The Good Life, which I recommend if you want a deeper dive into the stories behind the data.

  And here’s an unpaywalled version Atlantic article from 2009 on the study.

• Dave Cortright 4 Apr 2023 0:36 UTC

  −10 points

  0

  on: DaveC’s Shortform

  What we call “race” is simply the physiological acclimatization of our ancestors to their environment. This is one case where talking about the weather is not superficial or trite.

What if we are the jel­lyfish of this mo­ment?

• Dave Cortright 2 Apr 2023 1:52 UTC

  8 points

  0

  on: The Case for Earn­ing to Live

  This is objectively the best approach. If everyone just stepped up and put in the work to take care of themselves, we wouldn’t need charity at all. I shared the post with Hank Rearden and he’s 100% on board.

• Dave Cortright 1 Apr 2023 17:42 UTC

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: Felix Wolf’s comment on: One EA’s Per­spec­tive on Depression

  It could be helpful, but I think it’s also important to have professionals involved too. I’m part of a Mastermind group, I have a coach, and I still go to support groups weekly. And on days I need some extra and I don’t feel like my close friends are going to help, I use warmlines and hotlines like 7 Cups and 988.

One EA’s Per­spec­tive on Depression

• Dave Cortright 18 Mar 2023 20:28 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: The illu­sion of con­sen­sus about EA celebrities

  Nobody says you should like everyone. No one says you should agree with everyone either, even those who are high-profile in the community.

  It sounds to me like this boils down to beware of logical fallacies, especially ad hominem. Don’t criticize people; criticize ideas. Here are a couple of tactical things that have helped me:

  • Pretend that a different person (e.g. one for whom you have positive regard) was making the same point.

  • Distill their main points down to neutral tone language (I haven’t tried it, but ChatGPT or other LLMs might be a good tool to do this).

  Regarding the complaints you listed—wrong focus, sloppy thinking, irritating tone, mediocre performance—I’m a big fan of leadership by filling the vacuum. If you see something that could be improved and no one else is stepping up, maybe it’s time for you to step up and take a stab at it. It might not be perfect, but it will be better than doing nothing about it.

• Dave Cortright 16 Mar 2023 3:29 UTC

  20 points

  −6

  on: Time Ar­ti­cle Dis­cus­sion—“Effec­tive Altru­ist Lead­ers Were Re­peat­edly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Be­fore FTX Col­lapsed”

  I very much want this not to be true, but I suspect that if the Time editorial staff has done their due diligence, the odds of that are low. Thus it needs to be said:

  Anyone who was publicly proclaiming to care about long-termism but then secretly ignoring the broken step that was SBF—effectively trading ethics and morality for money and power—is not only a hypocrite but has done far more damage to EA than their lifetime contributions could ever offset.

  I have argued previously that conflating the actions of a person with the values of a group is a fallacy. However, when a subset of that group—especially ones in leadership roles—conspires to bury unseemly information, it starts to look like the whole group is specious, tainted, and untrustworthy.

  I look forward to the independent investigation report. But as resilient as I’ve been to the SBF implosion thus far, this is making me seriously reconsider how closely I want to associate with EA.

• Dave Cortright 2 Mar 2023 17:15 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: DaveC’s Shortform

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• Dave Cortright 24 Feb 2023 22:19 UTC

  1 point

  1

  on: Should we tell peo­ple they are morally obli­gated to give to char­ity? [Re­cent Paper]

  Betteridge’s law of headlines is an adage that states:

  Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

  It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the principle is much older. It is based on the assumption that if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a question, they are not accountable for whether it is correct or not. The adage does not apply to questions that are more open-ended than strict yes–no questions.

• Dave Cortright 22 Feb 2023 2:12 UTC

  4 points

  2

  on: Don’t Over-Up­date On Others’ Failures

  This is more adjacent than relevant, but the sentiment reminded me of this bit of wisdom…

  Don’t scar on the first cut

  from Rework by Jason Fried

  The second something goes wrong, the natural tendency is to create a policy. “Someone’s wearing shorts!? We need a dress code!” No, you don’t. You just need to tell John not to wear shorts again.

  Policies are organizational scar tissue. They are codified overreactions to situations that are unlikely to happen again. They are collective punishments for the misdeeds of an individual.

  This is how bureaucracies are born. No one sets out to create a bureaucracy. They sneak up on companies slowly. They are created one policy—one scar—at a time.

  So don’t scar on the first cut. Don’t create a policy because one person did something wrong once. Policies are only meant for situations that come up over and over again.