On the other hand, many of the times that I’ve previously tried to publicly take action in this space, I got shot down pretty harshly. So I’d love to hear why you think my proposals are naïve / misguided / going to pollute the commons / going to crash and burn before I launch anything this time. Concrete critiques and proposals of alternatives would be greatly appreciated.
I think it’s unfortunate that you were shot down this way. I think caution of this sort would be well-justified if we were in the business of operating a nuclear reactor or something like that. But as things are, I expect that even if one of your meetup experiments failed, it would give us useful data.
Maybe it’s not that people are against trying new things, it’s just that those who disagree are more likely to comment than those who agree.
One activity which I think could be fun, useful, and a good fit for the meetup format is brainstorming. You could have one or several brainstorming prompts every month (example prompt: “How can Moloch be defeated?”) and ask meetups to brainstorm based on those prompts and send you their ideas, and then you could assemble those into a global masterlist which credits the person who originated each idea (a bit like the Junto would gather the best ideas from each subgroup, I think). You could go around to various EA organizations and ask them for prompt ideas, for topics that EA organization wants more ideas on. For example, maybe Will MacAskill would request ideas for what Cause X might be. Maybe Habryka would ask for feature ideas for LW. You could offer brainstorming services publicly—maybe Mark Zuckerberg would ask for ideas on how to improve Facebook (secretly, through Julia Galef). You could have a brainstorming session for brainstorming prompts. You could suggest brainstorming protocols or give people a video to play or have a brainstorming session for brainstorming protocols (recursive self-improvement FTW).
Yeah, I actually agree, and that’s what I meant by ‘polluting the commons’ - if anyone who ever had an idea about meetups could go around demanding that people implement their thing, everything would quickly fall apart. (Random side note: this is one of the main failure modes of school reform in the US—there are so many new initiatives forced upon teachers that they never have time to get used to them, develop their own style, or even do their job). This is why I’m trying to be careful this time around. I also hope that my response to your top-level comment helped you understand where I’m coming from here.
Exciting stuff!
I think it’s unfortunate that you were shot down this way. I think caution of this sort would be well-justified if we were in the business of operating a nuclear reactor or something like that. But as things are, I expect that even if one of your meetup experiments failed, it would give us useful data.
Maybe it’s not that people are against trying new things, it’s just that those who disagree are more likely to comment than those who agree.
One activity which I think could be fun, useful, and a good fit for the meetup format is brainstorming. You could have one or several brainstorming prompts every month (example prompt: “How can Moloch be defeated?”) and ask meetups to brainstorm based on those prompts and send you their ideas, and then you could assemble those into a global masterlist which credits the person who originated each idea (a bit like the Junto would gather the best ideas from each subgroup, I think). You could go around to various EA organizations and ask them for prompt ideas, for topics that EA organization wants more ideas on. For example, maybe Will MacAskill would request ideas for what Cause X might be. Maybe Habryka would ask for feature ideas for LW. You could offer brainstorming services publicly—maybe Mark Zuckerberg would ask for ideas on how to improve Facebook (secretly, through Julia Galef). You could have a brainstorming session for brainstorming prompts. You could suggest brainstorming protocols or give people a video to play or have a brainstorming session for brainstorming protocols (recursive self-improvement FTW).
It’s one thing to run a meetup experiment. It’s another to globally say that everyone should run their meetups in a certain way.
Global coordination needs much more buy-in from other people.
Yeah, I actually agree, and that’s what I meant by ‘polluting the commons’ - if anyone who ever had an idea about meetups could go around demanding that people implement their thing, everything would quickly fall apart. (Random side note: this is one of the main failure modes of school reform in the US—there are so many new initiatives forced upon teachers that they never have time to get used to them, develop their own style, or even do their job). This is why I’m trying to be careful this time around. I also hope that my response to your top-level comment helped you understand where I’m coming from here.