I don't know that I'm the kind of person OP is thinking of, but beyond opportunity cost there's also a question of reportorial distance/objectivity. I've thought a lot about whether to do a project like this and one sticking point is (a) I identify as an EA (b) I donate to GiveWell and signed the GWWC pledge (c) many of my friends are EAs, so I'm not sure any book I produce would be perceived as having sufficient credibility among non-EA readers.
I'd encourage you to consider taking it on. Even if identifying as an EA would reduce the credibility for outsiders, I'm sure whatever you produced would be a wonderful starting point for anyone else tackling it down the line.
Hell yes to all of this. I'll also add that as someone who grew up in a small town (not a universal experience but probably a shared one) I found mega-cities like New York or London to be so overwhelming in their scale that just trying to get around was stressful.
DC is, as Anon mentions, a pretty compact city, and young professionals tend to live in a small number of neighborhoods (Petworth, Shaw, Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, Mt. Pleasant, H St — I'm probably dating myself with this list) that aren't far apart from each other. You can walk from the cent...
These are all fair points. For myself, I'll say that (a) we have a lot of evidence internally that Vox's readership is pretty left-leaning and (b) I care a lot about persuading people of core EA ideas, like giving impartially and effectively, the importance of global poverty/animals/future people, etc. So naturally when I'm aiming to persuade, I tend to make arguments I think will make sense to the audience I know I have.
I didn't intend the piece to alienate EAs who don't have center-left politics, and apologize if I had that effect anyway. I agree that a strength of the movement is the relative lack of ideological litmus tests, and I hope that continues.
Hi Dylan,
Thanks for the reply. I do appreciate that Vox's readership leans left, and it can be useful to tailor one's messaging to the expected readership.
Trouble is, in the social media era, articles intended for one readership can easily get picked up, shared, mocked, trolled, satirized, and misunderstood by people from other political perspectives. So I'm worried about conservatives who see the article might end up thinking that EA is 'just virtue signaling for liberal Vox readers', or 'just an excuse to push the Soros/WEF globalism agenda',...
These are great questions; I'd be curious to see some of the major labs write up their answers to 2. As a non-specialist I sometimes struggle to understand the nuances of how what Anthropic's doing differs from what OpenAI does etc etc.
Perhaps helpful: a few years ago Hidden Brain did an episode on my marriage and how my wife (who is a lovely, ethical person, but doesn't identify as EA and has some significant disagreements with some EA ideas) and I (an EA trying his best who's also wrong sometimes) get along. Obviously we're just one couple so our discussions/tensions may not be representative, but I thought Shankar Vedantam and the producer, Rhaina Cohen, did a fantastic job.
I wonder how much of this is explained by utilitarians selecting out of professional philosophy because of the theory's implications.
I seriously considered philosophy grad school and was discouraged by some mentors who thought that if I took consequentialism seriously, other career options were more promising avenues to impact.
If enough people do that, though, the academy's going to be left leaning against consequentialism.
I appreciate the feedback! I will admit I had not seen Terminator in a while before writing that post. I also appreciate including Paul's follow-up, which is definitely clarifying. Will be clearer about the meaning of "influence" going forward.
Thanks for reading! I admire that you take the time to respond to critiques even by random internet strangers. Thank you for all your hard work in promoting effective altruist ideas.
Having followed Alvea's journey for a good chunk of this time, I was really impressed by how you all handled the project and your humility in dealing with trial disappointments and winddown.