mingyuan comments on My experience at and around MIRI and CFAR (inspired by Zoe Curzi’s writeup of experiences at Leverage)

[mingyuan]

Okay, meta: This post has over 500 comments now and it’s really hard to keep a handle on all of the threads. So I spent the last 2 hours trying to outline the main topics that keep coming up. Most top-level comments are linked to but some didn’t really fit into any category, so a couple are missing; also apologies that the structure is imperfect.

Topic headers are bolded and are organized very roughly in order of how important they seem (both to me personally and in terms of the amount of air time they’ve gotten).

• Discussion of MIRI/​CFAR vs Leverage comparison

  • Extent to which this post pulls attention away from (and cheapens) the important discussion that was being had about Leverage

    • Aella’s thread

  • Discussion of extent to which the comparison is misleading, and concrete places where the comparison breaks down

    • Eli’s thread

    • Viliam’s subsubthread

    • Habryka’s subthread

    • Vanessa’s thread

    • Different drivers of mental health problems (rationalistthrowaway’s thread)

    • Different norms wrt criticsim (Viliam’s subthread)

    • We don’t actually know how bad Leverage was (Freyja’s subthread)

  • Accounts from other MIRI and CFAR employees (current or former)

    • Addressing factual statements

      • orthonormal’s thread

      • Anna’s thread

      • Unreal’s thread

      • Allegations of problems at CFAR (PhoenixFriend’s thread)

        • Several responses from current or recent CFAR employees

      • It’s misleading to say CFAR and Leverage had the same plans (Anna’s subthread)

      • Addressing the interaction between CFAR and MAPLE/​Monastic Academy (Duncan’s subthread)

    • Addressing the general vibe of the OP

      • Logan’s subthread

• Extent of Michael Vassar’s involvement in psychosis cases, and discussion of how misleading it was to leave this out of the original post

  • Scott’s thread

  • Habryka’s subthread

  • Problems need scapegoats (Vaniver’s subthread)

• Is the situation described here worse than the average?

  • Discussion of how rates of mental health problems in the rationality community and various subcommunities compare to base rates in comparable communities

    • Rob’s thread

      • Anecdotal experience in CS academia

    • Gunnar and Habryka’s subthread

  • Discussion of whether MIRI and Leverage are worse for employees’ mental health than the average tech workplace

    • Jessica’s subthread

  • Discussion of secrecy

    • Zack’s thread

    • Claim that secrecy of this level is totally normal in some fields (Aryeh’s comment)

    • Discussion of whether writing about timelines influences timelines (AlexMennen’s thread)

• Is cult-like psychological harm a recurring pattern in the rationalist community, and what can we do to mitigate it?

  • nostalgebraist’s thread

  • Comparison to academia (temporarity_visitor_account’s thread)

  • Three factors and potential ways of addressing them (James_Miller’s thread)

  • Short comment by 4thWayWastrel basically just stating the question

• Discussion of potentially harmful memes around ‘psycho-spiritual development’, including postrationality, psychedelics, and ‘woo’/​supernaturalism

  • CronoDAS and Eliezer’s thread

    • Woo: Discussion of Buddhism, meditation, tarot

      • Can meditation be harmful in much the same way as psychedelics

      • Connections between psychedelic use and ‘woo’

    • Psychedelics: Discussion of therapeutic uses, anecdotes about good and bad effects, anecdotes about irresponsible usage

      • Sub-discussion about drugs in general and illegality

  • Viliam’s subthread

    • Around Kegan levels and the Monastic Academy

  • Claim that psychedelics don’t have much impact on most people (Kenny’s thread)

  • Discussion of drugs and drug legal status (James_Miller’s thread)

• The mission is inherently stressful

  • Chris_Leong’s comment

  • adamzerner’s comment

  • Vanessa’s thread

• Discussion of idolization of rationalist community ‘thought leaders’

  • Deference to Eliezer (Ben’s thread)

  • Deference to Anna Salamon (PhoenixFriend’s thread, perhaps elsewhere as well)

  • How important is Eliezer’s contribution to AI safety, actually? (Chris_Leong’s thread)

• People might have very different experiences in the same organization

  • Unreal’s thread

  • Also discussed a lot in the comments of the preceding Leverage-focused posts

• Addressing other aspects of the OP

  • Discussion of what OP says about hiring practices (Vanessa’s thread)

  • Discussion of OP’s allegations that other EA orgs do ‘fake research’ (philip_b’s thread)

  • Unconvinced by the argumentation in the post (bn22’s comment)

[Ruby]

This is hugely helpful, a great community service! Thanks so much, mingyuan.