User Comment Replies

EA Meta Fund Grants – July 2020

This comment is not intended to detract from the work that WANBAM has done (it's partly premised on the assumption that their mentoring work has likely been valuable to the individual people receiving mentorship): what would your views be about funding an EA mentoring program that was open to male EAs?

The case for such an initiative being extremely valuable seems very strong on the face of it. This is based on the assumption that mentoring is very valuable to individuals (this may have collective benefits if it makes them more impactful) and that ther... (read more)

Max_Daniel4y19

I think that many people would be afraid to pitch a mentoring scheme that was open to men given that WANBAM exists

FWIW, I find this very surprising, and like Denise personally have the opposite intuition.

(What I would be hesitant to do - but not because I'm afraid but because I think it's a bad idea - is to pitch a mentoring scheme that explicitly emphasizes or discusses at length that it's open to men, or any other audience which is normally included and would be odd to single out.)

In general, the default for most things is that they'r... (read more)

agdfoster

I agree with Denise. Although it's worth noting that our bar for a mentorship program worth funding does have to be quite high.

Denise_Melchin4y16

In short: yes, we are open to funding other mentorship programmes, including ones open to men.

I would be pretty sad if people felt less motivated to start a mentorship programme because we already funded another. I am hoping for the opposite effect. I agree that mentorship is very valuable.

My intuition is that people consider us willing to fund a project with one target audience as positive evidence for us willing to fund a similar project with a different target audience, as it provides proof of concept that we are willing to fund such projects in princip

... (read more)

Kirsten

I am not the meta fund, but I'd be excited to see a variety of quality mentoring schemes in EA with different goals (just like I'd be excited to see a variety of career coaching organisations and charity evaluators)

Against opposing SJ activism/cancellations

Commentator4y15

I think it's important to consider the general principles in question even if the particular instrumental claim 'defending accused witches doesn't do as much good, as you would in expectation be prevented from doing via your work on slavery if you defended accused witches.'

This seems to imply some general principles which don't seem that attractive, i.e. "Don't speak out against/defend against/protest one injustice if you think it will get in the way of working on injustices you care about more.'

This seems like the k... (read more)

Commentator4y6

My interpretation is that the essay aims to provide a sketch of what should be covered in an education, e.g. p7: 'In order to provide some structure to such an enterprise, a schema of seven big areas and some material is sketched'. I think it is a poor sketch.

I note that you've switched from suggesting that the essay is supposed to give a comprehensive account of "most important economic and political priorities" to suggesting this is supposed to give "a sketch of what should be covered in an education", but I think ... (read more)

Ben

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I've thought about the points you raise and I think they are all good challenges. I agree that Cummings raises interesting and relevant points in a range of areas. I think you and I have different views on several points. The most important one seems to be that I think the piece at times aspires to represent the whole, even as a sketch ('An Odyssean education'). And my view is that two of the most important areas (if I were writing such an essay) would be voting and political systems, and climate change, neither of which I feel get sufficient attention in the piece. It seems that on each of these topics you take a different viewpoint, which I respect. Again, thanks for your feedback. Unless there's much else you think we can do to resolve this difference, I'd probably leave it there.

Commentator4y11

Thanks for your reply!

1. I don't think this is the right standard (or a fair standard) for a few reasons.

1a. I don't recall Cummings claiming that this was a _comprehensive_ description of the "most important economic and political priorities." But it's been a while since I read the essay, perhaps you can correct me.

1b. Even if this essay was presented as a description of the top economic and political priorities, it's always trivially easy to think of _some_ potentially highly important issue that wasn't discussed. I thi... (read more)

Ben

1a,1b. My interpretation is that the essay aims to provide a sketch of what should be covered in an education, e.g. p7: 'In order to provide some structure to such an enterprise, a schema of seven big areas and some material is sketched'. I think it is a poor sketch. 1c. I think that if DGB claimed to be a sketch of the most important areas there are, and it missed out a huge area, e.g. global poverty, then it could be rightly challenged as a poor guide. 2. In the review I mention that his digressions into neurons and processing power draws false conclusions. He is also particularly scornful of the social sciences, and arts and humanities. 3. It is true that he briefly discusses voting in a section on decision-making and in an endnote, but in both places it is incidental to his point rather than a main topic. A discussion of voting and democracy is absent from the section I was expecting it, ' 7. Political economy, philosophy, and avoiding catastrophes.', and I cannot see it covered elsewhere in the piece.

Commentator4y39

I didn't find this review very helpful. Hopefully I'll be able to explain why and hopefully people will read Cummings's essay for themselves.

As you note, this is not (straightforwardly) an essay about education. It's a wide-ranging discussion of his views on a handful of core themes, and a series of disconnected thoughts on many topics. You might think these are vices in an essay, but I think it's only fair to evaluate the essay in terms of what it's actually trying to do.

As far as I can tell, it's not trying to be a com... (read more)

Ben4y20

Thanks for your feedback! I agree that people should read the essay and make up their minds for themselves.

To address the points you raised:

As a set of notes, it claims to address the most important economic and political priorities, and I think this is the criteria on which it should be judged. My view is that it fails to do so.
My main beef with Cummings is that he overreaches in areas he's not familiar with, and he has uncharitable disdain for the work of others, and I think this is consistent throughout the piece.
In my view there is a tension b

... (read more)

Effective Altruism Forum
EA Forum

All of Commentator's Comments + Replies