Yes, I also believe this! And I think the two pieces of advice aren't necessarily contradictory - I could imagine stages in which curiosity is what you need, and stages where you'd want more focus. I guess I wrote this within the context of already being in touch with my curiosity and needing to rein it in a bit.
Also, I hope it's sufficiently clear that I'm not trying to claim that action-relevance is *all* you should think about as a fledgling researcher? (If not, I'm happy to make an edit to the post)
If I have the time, I'd like to write several research skills posts for a more nuanced picture, but it seemed good to focus on one concept at a time, so necessarily it might look a bit one-sided.
Thanks for this helpful post!
I'm currently running EA Berlin on a part-time grant and was wondering about your thoughts on work groups, since we do a bunch of project-based work that might fit with that. Was "sparking workgroups" something of a side-effect or did you actively encourage that? Do members run them independently, or do you support them, and how?
Thank you so much for this! You are right that putting labels on these things and realising it's pretty normal to feel like this is already surprisingly helpful.
I still haven't really figured out how similar advice could be used to support other altruists, especially when it's people in your own group whom you don't know too well. Is there anything more than to say "oh, and this is a thing, come talk to me if you want"?
Hi, thanks for your comment :) Seems like I should have made that clearer!
Since what I'm doing is applying Will's approach, the approach is not itself new.
I haven't seen it discussed with regards to the worldview-split problem, but since I ended up condensing different "worldviews" into a decision between two theories, it turned out to be basically the same (which is not without problem, for that matter).
I still found it valuable to try out this process in practice, and since I am expecting many people to not have read Will's thesis, I hoped this would provide them with an example of such a process. One person told me they found it valuable to use this way of thinking for themselves, and someone else said they were more inclined to read the actual thesis now, so I think there is some value in this article, and the issue might be more about the way I'm framing it.
If you have an idea for a framing you would have found more useful, I'd be happy to know. Do you think just adding a sentence or two at the start of the article might do?
Hey! I've written a post about prioritising between different worldviews (as Open Phil calls them), using expected-value/expected choice-worthiness calculation. It would be nice if you could
1) give me feedback
2) like this post if you think I should be able to post this on the forum.
Thank you - this sounds like it will be very valuable for our local reading/discussion group! In previous discussions, we were struggling a bit with the term "suffering", since we couldn't find a clear definition for it (we read Thoomas Metzinger's paper, but didn't find it very useful). Do you have any recommendations for that, too?
Yes, I also believe this! And I think the two pieces of advice aren't necessarily contradictory - I could imagine stages in which curiosity is what you need, and stages where you'd want more focus. I guess I wrote this within the context of already being in touch with my curiosity and needing to rein it in a bit.
Also, I hope it's sufficiently clear that I'm not trying to claim that action-relevance is *all* you should think about as a fledgling researcher? (If not, I'm happy to make an edit to the post)
If I have the time, I'd like to write several research skills posts for a more nuanced picture, but it seemed good to focus on one concept at a time, so necessarily it might look a bit one-sided.
Thanks for this helpful post! I'm currently running EA Berlin on a part-time grant and was wondering about your thoughts on work groups, since we do a bunch of project-based work that might fit with that. Was "sparking workgroups" something of a side-effect or did you actively encourage that? Do members run them independently, or do you support them, and how?
Thank you so much for this! You are right that putting labels on these things and realising it's pretty normal to feel like this is already surprisingly helpful. I still haven't really figured out how similar advice could be used to support other altruists, especially when it's people in your own group whom you don't know too well. Is there anything more than to say "oh, and this is a thing, come talk to me if you want"?
Hi, thanks for your comment :) Seems like I should have made that clearer! Since what I'm doing is applying Will's approach, the approach is not itself new. I haven't seen it discussed with regards to the worldview-split problem, but since I ended up condensing different "worldviews" into a decision between two theories, it turned out to be basically the same (which is not without problem, for that matter). I still found it valuable to try out this process in practice, and since I am expecting many people to not have read Will's thesis, I hoped this would provide them with an example of such a process. One person told me they found it valuable to use this way of thinking for themselves, and someone else said they were more inclined to read the actual thesis now, so I think there is some value in this article, and the issue might be more about the way I'm framing it. If you have an idea for a framing you would have found more useful, I'd be happy to know. Do you think just adding a sentence or two at the start of the article might do?
Hey! I've written a post about prioritising between different worldviews (as Open Phil calls them), using expected-value/expected choice-worthiness calculation. It would be nice if you could 1) give me feedback 2) like this post if you think I should be able to post this on the forum.
Thanks everyone :)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E2JF9mqDiMS4Q-QQd8TnWUwNmMC9uoym2p3x7W7rhGA/edit?usp=sharing
Thank you - this sounds like it will be very valuable for our local reading/discussion group! In previous discussions, we were struggling a bit with the term "suffering", since we couldn't find a clear definition for it (we read Thoomas Metzinger's paper, but didn't find it very useful). Do you have any recommendations for that, too?