I'm posting this to tie in with the Forum's Draft Amnesty Week (March 11-17) plans, but it is also a question of more general interest. The last time this question was posted, it got some great responses.
This post is a companion post for What posts are you thinking about writing?
When answering in this thread, I suggest putting each idea in a different answer, so that comment threads don't get too confusing.
If you think someone has already written the answer to a user's question, consider lending a hand and linking it in the comments.
A few suggestions for possible answers:
- A question you would like someone to answer: “How, historically, did AI safety become an EA cause area?”
- A type of experience you would like to hear about: “I’d love to hear about the experience of moving from consulting into biosecurity policy. Does anyone know anyone like this who might want to write about their experience?”
If you find yourself with loads of ideas, consider writing a full "posts I would like someone to write" post.
Draft Amnesty Week
If you see a post idea here which you think you might be positioned to answer, Draft Amnesty Week (March 11-17) might be a great time to post it. In Draft Amnesty Week, your posts don't have to be fully thought through, or even fully drafted. Bullet-points and missing sections are allowed, so you can have a lower bar for posting.
A possible reframe: Under what circumstances is writing posts and/or comments on the EA Forum more (or less) likely to be an impactful use of one's time?
For example, your answer above suggests that writing on the Forum is not impactful where the theory of change involves influencing the actions of "people who have power and influence." I don't have an opinion on that either way. However, both that assertion and "Forum writing influences the views of more junior people, some of whom will have power in influence in 3-10 years" could be true. If so, that would nudge us toward writing certain types of posts and away from writing others (e.g., those in which a decision has to be made soon or never).
Adjacent to this point about how we could improve EA communication, I think it would be cool to have a post that explores how we might effectively use, like, Mastodon or some other method of dynamic, self-governed federation to get around this issue. I think this issue goes well beyond just the EA forum in some ways lol.
Good suggestion! Happy Ramadan! <3
Here is some more discussion on a very similar topic, if anyone wants more ideas. Brad and I seemed to have had this thought more or less at the same time!