I left out nuances to keep the blindspot summary short and readable. But I should have specifically prefaced what fell outside the scope of my writing. Not doing so made claims come across more extreme than I meant for the more literal/explicit readers amongst us :)
So for you who still happens to read this, here’s where I was coming from:
To describe blindspots broadly across the entire rationality and EA community. In actual fact I see both communities more as loose clusters of interacting and affiliated people. Each gathered group somewhat diverges in how it attracts members who are predisposed towards focussing on (and reinforce each other to express) certain aspects as perceived within certain views.
I pointed out how a few groups diverge in the summary above (e.g. effective animal advocacy vs. LW decision theorists, thriving vs suffering-focussed EAs), but left out many others. Responding to Christian Kl’s earlier comment, I think how the ‘CFAR alumni’ cluster frames aspects meaningfully diverges from the larger/overlapping ‘long-time LessWrong fans’ cluster.
Previously, I suggested that EA staff could coordinate work more through non-EA-branded groups with distinct yet complementary scopes and purposes, so the general overarching tone of this post runs counter to that.
To aggregate common views within which our members seemed to most often frame problems (as expressed to others involved in the community they knew also aimed to work on those problems), and to contrast those with the foci held by other purposeful human communities out there.
Naturally, what an individual human focusses on in any given moment depends on their changing emotional/mental makeup and the context they find themselves (incl. the role they then identify as having) in. I’m not e.g. claiming that when someone who aspires to be a rational researcher at work focusses on brushing their teeth at home while glancing at their romantic partner, they must nevertheless be thinking real abstract and elegant thoughts.
But for me, the exercise of mapping ouringroup’s brightspots onto each listed dimension – relative to the focus of outside groups on – has provided some overview. The dimensions are from a perceptual framework I gradually put together and that is somewhat internally coherent (but predictably overwhelms anyone whom I explain it to, and leaves them wondering how it’s useful; hence this more pragmatic post).
I hope though no reader ends up using this as a personality test – say for identifying their or their friend’s (supposedly stable) character traits to predict their resulting future behaviour (or god forgive, to explain away any confusion or disagreement they sense about what an unfamiliar stranger says).
To keep each blindspot explanation simple and to the point: If I already mix in a lot of ‘on one hand in this group...but on the other hand in this situation’, the reader will gloss over the core argument. I appreciate people’s comments with nuanced counterexamples though. Keeps me intellectually honest.
Hope that clarifies the post’s argumentation style somewhat. I had those three starting points at the back of my mind while writing in March. So sorry I didn’t include them.
I left out nuances to keep the blindspot summary short and readable. But I should have specifically prefaced what fell outside the scope of my writing. Not doing so made claims come across more extreme than I meant for the more literal/explicit readers amongst us :)
So for you who still happens to read this, here’s where I was coming from:
To describe blindspots broadly across the entire rationality and EA community.
In actual fact I see both communities more as loose clusters of interacting and affiliated people. Each gathered group somewhat diverges in how it attracts members who are predisposed towards focussing on (and reinforce each other to express) certain aspects as perceived within certain views.
I pointed out how a few groups diverge in the summary above (e.g. effective animal advocacy vs. LW decision theorists, thriving vs suffering-focussed EAs), but left out many others. Responding to Christian Kl’s earlier comment, I think how the ‘CFAR alumni’ cluster frames aspects meaningfully diverges from the larger/overlapping ‘long-time LessWrong fans’ cluster.
Previously, I suggested that EA staff could coordinate work more through non-EA-branded groups with distinct yet complementary scopes and purposes, so the general overarching tone of this post runs counter to that.
To aggregate common views within which our members seemed to most often frame problems (as expressed to others involved in the community they knew also aimed to work on those problems), and to contrast those with the foci held by other purposeful human communities out there.
Naturally, what an individual human focusses on in any given moment depends on their changing emotional/mental makeup and the context they find themselves (incl. the role they then identify as having) in. I’m not e.g. claiming that when someone who aspires to be a rational researcher at work focusses on brushing their teeth at home while glancing at their romantic partner, they must nevertheless be thinking real abstract and elegant thoughts.
But for me, the exercise of mapping our ingroup’s brightspots onto each listed dimension – relative to the focus of outside groups on – has provided some overview. The dimensions are from a perceptual framework I gradually put together and that is somewhat internally coherent (but predictably overwhelms anyone whom I explain it to, and leaves them wondering how it’s useful; hence this more pragmatic post).
I hope though no reader ends up using this as a personality test – say for identifying their or their friend’s (supposedly stable) character traits to predict their resulting future behaviour (or god forgive, to explain away any confusion or disagreement they sense about what an unfamiliar stranger says).
To keep each blindspot explanation simple and to the point:
If I already mix in a lot of ‘on one hand in this group...but on the other hand in this situation’, the reader will gloss over the core argument. I appreciate people’s comments with nuanced counterexamples though. Keeps me intellectually honest.
Hope that clarifies the post’s argumentation style somewhat.
I had those three starting points at the back of my mind while writing in March. So sorry I didn’t include them.