blehrer
Posts 2
Comments14
The general point you're making seems valuable.
One piece of pushback: it seems like you’re implying that success or experience ‘doing things’ = selling products / making money. I’d like to think that not all altruistic work can be aided by this type of experience. Altruism is not a consumer product.
If your post is just trying to make the point that people who have experience around X (private sector or otherwise) are better equipped to give advice about X, well then yeah, I don’t think anybody will argue with you about that.
A lot of what makes copy impactful (not in the EA sense of the word) has to do with language-specific sounds and connotations, so I don't think I can be of much help.
That being said, I wonder if you could come up with something that plays off of the immediacy of the pandemic as a tail risk that is actually quite palpable, and how AI poses a similar risk profile.
Yeah if you read the essay it spends a lot of time speaking to both of those questions
tldr
The fear is born from the very DNA of EA which has its roots in avoiding emotional irrationalities that lead to ineffective forms of altruism. The culture shift I want to see is a product of a) acknowledging and relinquishing this fear when it's not based on reality b) understanding the value proposition of good communications
One of the broader points I'm advocating for is that the middle ground is far more stable and sizable than many in the community might think it is.
I think the 'non-serious' individual you speak of is somewhat of a straw man. If they are real, the risk of them polluting the quality of EA's work is quite small IMO. It's important to make a distinction between the archetype of a follower/fan (external comms) and a worker/creator (internal comms). A lot of EAs conflate internal and external communications.
The banner is really nice work!!