I didn't downvote your comment, but I did feel a bit like it wasn't really addressing the points Chi was making, so if I had to guess, I'd say that might be why.
This is a really interesting point! I think I'm also sometimes guilty of using the norms of signalling epistemic uncertainty in order to mask what is actually anxious social signalling on my part, which I hadn't thought about so explicitly until now.
One thing that occurred to me while reading this - I'd be curious as to whether you have any thoughts on how this might interact with gender diversity in EA, if at all?
Over time, I’ve become less convinced of the value of thinking explicitly about weirdness points for most individuals, and I’m concerned that for many people the concept can actually be pretty harmful. To a large extent, I’m referring less to this actual post, and more to weirdness points as a meme, which I think is somewhat less nuanced than the original post. So I might not be maximally charitable in my criticisms, since what I am criticising is the concept as it is often expressed, rather thanas it was originally expressed.
My concerns are a combin...
I just want to flag up that The Better Angels of Our Nature, whilst a great book, contains quite a few graphic descriptions of torture, which even as an adult I found somewhat disturbing. I don't necessarily think teenage-me would have been affected any worse, but you might still not want to put it in a school library.
I expect this isn't what you're actually implying, but I'm a bit worried this could be misread as saying that most people who are sufficiently talented in the relevant sense to work at an EA org are capable of earning $1m/year elsewhere, and that if you can't, then you prob... (read more)
Agreed. I appreciate this post and responses alike, but think there are many examples of:
I expect there are several cases a year where the world would be better off if an individual in category 1 would EtG and fund direct work of 5-10 individuals in category 2, than if the individual i... (read more)
Thanks for that clarification—maybe the $1m/year figure is distracting. I only mentioned it as an illustration of this point:
The post argues that the kind of talent valuable for direct work is rare. Insofar as that's true, the conclusion ("prefer direct work") only applies to people with rare talent.