Even more so, I would love to see your unjustifiable stab-in-the-dark intuitions as to where the center of all this is
Curious why this in particular (not trying to take umbrage with wanting this info; I agree that there’s a lot of useful data here. Would be a thing I’d also want to ask for, but wouldn’t have prioritised)
Good question. I’m not sure if this will make sense, but: this is somehow the sort of place where I would expect peoples’ stab-in-the-dark faculties (“blindsight”, some of us call it at CFAR) to have some shot at seeing the center of the thing, and where by contrast I would expect that trying to analyze it with explicit concepts that we already know how to point to would… find us some very interesting details, but nonetheless risk having us miss the “main point,” whatever that is.
Differently put: “what is up with institutional cultures lately?” is a question where I don’t yet have the right frame/ontology. And so, if we try to talk from concepts/ontologies we do have, I’m afraid we’ll slide off of the thing. Whereas, if we tune in to something like that tiny note of discord Eliezer talks about (or if we pan out a lot, and ask what our taste says is/isn’t most relevant to the situation, or ask ourselves what does/doesn’t feel most central), we may have a better shot.
Curious why this in particular (not trying to take umbrage with wanting this info; I agree that there’s a lot of useful data here. Would be a thing I’d also want to ask for, but wouldn’t have prioritised)
Good question. I’m not sure if this will make sense, but: this is somehow the sort of place where I would expect peoples’ stab-in-the-dark faculties (“blindsight”, some of us call it at CFAR) to have some shot at seeing the center of the thing, and where by contrast I would expect that trying to analyze it with explicit concepts that we already know how to point to would… find us some very interesting details, but nonetheless risk having us miss the “main point,” whatever that is.
Differently put: “what is up with institutional cultures lately?” is a question where I don’t yet have the right frame/ontology. And so, if we try to talk from concepts/ontologies we do have, I’m afraid we’ll slide off of the thing. Whereas, if we tune in to something like that tiny note of discord Eliezer talks about (or if we pan out a lot, and ask what our taste says is/isn’t most relevant to the situation, or ask ourselves what does/doesn’t feel most central), we may have a better shot.