Introduction to part 2

In part 1 I argued that there are three predictably recurring problems with EA tech work: it being bad for developing technical skills, inefficient, and difficult to hire effectively for. In this part I argue that each problem could be mitigated or even fixed by consolidating the workers into a single agency. I focus here on the benefits common to any form of agency - in the next part I’ll look at some of the unique advantages of an agency which itself was a donor-funded EA org.

Stepping through the issues in part 1:

Agencies would make the tech work better for coders

Multiple coders

At any given time in the last few years, there have been perhaps 5-10 software developers working full time in EA nonprofits. Most...

(I have no association with the EA Forum team or CEA, and this idea comes with no official mandate. I'm open to suggestions of totally different ways of doing this.)

Update: Aaron here. This has our official mandate now, and I'm subscribed to the post so that I'll be notified of every comment. Please suggest tags!

2021 update: Michael here again. The EA's tag system is now paired with the EA Wiki, and so proposals on this post are now for "entries", which can mean tags, EA Wiki articles, or (most often) pages that serve both roles.

The EA Forum now has tags, and users can now make tags themselves. I think this is really cool, and I've now made a bunch of tags. 

But I find it hard to decide...

[Also posted on LW.]

I’ve been working on a report (see blog) assessing possible trajectories for GWP out to 2100. A lot of my early work focussed on analysing a paper of my colleague David Roodman. Roodman fits a growth model to long-run GWP; the model predicts a 50% probability that annual GWP growth is >= 30% by 2043.

I was thinking about whether to trust this model’s GWP forecasts, compared with the standard extrapolations that predict GWP growth of ~3% per year or less.^[1] I was also thinking about how the model might relate to AI timelines.

This post briefly describes some of my key takeaways, as they don’t figure prominently in the report. I explain them briefly and directly, rather than focussing on nuance or caveats.^[2] I expect...

Epistemic status: This post leans heavily on my personal experience and is not well-researched. I’m not a doctor, nor have I studied medicine. I do consider myself pretty good at Googling things though. Also, a real doctor did look over and at least tacitly approve of this post. I’m not doing much in the way of literature review, validating claims, etc so take everything with a teaspoon of salt. There are also more side effects and bad interactions than I’m able to mention. Do your own research before you try any interventions I suggest! Also, if you find something definitely wrong in the post let me know in the comments and I’ll try to correct it.

Over the past two years or so I’ve been on a long...

I'm writing this more to regulate my emotional state than anything--when I started writing I felt like I was clinging to an overturned inflatable raft in storm-tossed seas of panic.

I

Does anyone else do this thing where one generates an Ugh Field about a friend or community that one likes, because one knows that they've wronged some other party by not responding to them with any punctuality, and now it's been so long that there's no justifiable reason to not have responded yet--not even being kidnapped by Somalian pirates--, which makes one even more prone to flinching away from responding, to the point where one's mind--in its wanderings--merely touching on the idea of logging on to a website might lead to one being unproductive for hours as one...