Reflections on "Status Handcuffs" over one's career (This was edited using Claude) Having too much professional success early on can ironically restrict you later on. People typically are hesitant to go down in status when choosing their next job. This can easily mean that "staying in career limbo" can be higher-status than actually working. At least when you're in career limbo, you have a potential excuse. This makes it difficult to change careers. It's very awkward to go from "manager of a small team" to "intern," but that can be necessary if you want to learn a new domain, for instance.  The EA Community Context In the EA community, some aspects of this are tricky. The funders very much want to attract new and exciting talent. But this means that the older talent is in an awkward position. The most successful get to take advantage of the influx of talent, with more senior leadership positions. But there aren't too many of these positions to go around. It can feel weird to work on the same level or under someone more junior than yourself. Pragmatically, I think many of the old folks around EA are either doing very well, or are kind of lost/exploring other avenues. Other areas allow people to have more reputable positions, but these are typically not very EA/effective areas. Often E2G isn't very high-status in these clusters, so I think a lot of these people just stop doing much effective work. Similar Patterns in Other Fields This reminds me of law firms, which are known to have "up or out" cultures. I imagine some of this acts as a formal way to prevent this status challenge - people who don't highly succeed get fully kicked out, in part because they might get bitter if their career gets curtailed. An increasingly narrow set of lawyers continue on the Partner track.  I'm also used to hearing about power struggles for senior managers close to retirement at big companies, where there's a similar struggle. There's a large cluster of highly experienced peop

The EA community has been welcoming in many ways, yet I've noticed a fair bit of standoffishness around some of my professional circles. [1] Several factors likely contribute: 1.  Many successful thinkers often possess high disagreeableness, introversion, significant egos, and intense focus on their work 2. Limited funding creates natural competition between people and groups, fostering zero-sum incentives 3. These people are very similar to academics, which also share these same characteristics I've noticed that around forecasting/EA, funding scarcity means one organization getting a grant can prevent another from receiving support. There's only so much money in the space. In addition to nonprofit groups, there are some for-profit groups - but I think the for-profit groups have even more inherent challenges cooperating. As a simple example, Kalshi has been accused of doing some particularly mean spirited things to its competitors. Another personal example - Guesstimate and Squiggle are in a narrow category of [probabilistic risk management tools]. This is an incredibly narrow field that few people know much about, but it also requires a lot of work. There are a few organizations in this field, and most directly compete with each other. So it's very awkward for people in different groups to share ideas, even though these are about the only people they could share ideas with.  A significant downside for individuals is the profound isolation this sort of environment creates. Each given ecosystem is already quite small, making it particularly problematic when you feel you're competing with (rather than collaborating with) the few others in your field. People can surprisingly easily end up collaborating with essentially no one for stretches of 10-30 years. This situation creates obvious challenges for overall productivity. While competitive pressure can motivate individual performance, it simultaneously hampers coordination between different actors. The result

I think a lot of great discussions are being had in private Google Docs. I also think that a lot of this discussion gets completely lost and/or forgotten. "Quick Takes" can act as an alternative. Arguably, this is a good place to try out smaller ideas and/or get feedback on them. Any early discussion on quick takes is arguably more useful than similar discussion with Google Comments, as it would all be public.  Personally I've been enjoying my quick take use. I feel like I could get a good amount of discussion and interaction, for the level of work I'm required to put in for the post. I might later convert some of this into full regular posts, but I don't feel a rush. I also do a lot of writing quick similar post to my Facebook account, especially if they seem like a better fit for that audience.  Likewise, I feel more comfortable commenting on other people's short takes than I do private docs, because that way it feels like my comments are more likely to be useful. With Google Docs it's easy for a lot of work to get totally ignored and then lost.  Obviously, I realize there are some good reasons/circumstances for privacy and for Google Docs. But I suspect that these benefits are narrower than some assume. Being more public has some downsides, but I think it's often possible to overcome these downsides - after which the net-upsides both personally and collectively can be significant.  This comment has gotten me to think about this, and I have a corresponding public response there with my point. 

A lot of post-AGI predictions are more like 1920s predicting flying cars (technically feasible, maximally desirable if no other constraints, same thing as current system but better) instead of predicting EasyJet: crammed low-cost airlines (physical constraints imposing economic constraints, shaped by iterative regulation, different from current system)

For a crowd of people that often doesn't take time off because there is more work to do, or thinks of triage in terms of deaths averted, it can be nice to see people have fun and be silly. I'm mentally preparing myself to see a dozen or more April's fools posts with wordplay, teasing, and snark from various people. If anybody wants to have serious discussions on the EA Forum, I recommend postponing for a few days.