You left off the most important point. If you think a topic is important and that someone smarter than you is already working on it, it would seem like your best move is to try and help.
One argument in favor of leaving RALI A to HLA 1 and going off to fund your own puppy cuteness augmentation program is that you might not want to make a redundant effort. But I think the risk depends on how much progress has been made on the topic in question. If the big fish already have a pretty solid direction, ask someone who knows more about it than you do where the gaps are and go work on that. If you think you might get a response, go ahead and ask the big fish what needs working on. Fortune favors the bold.
You left off the most important point. If you think a topic is important and that someone smarter than you is already working on it, it would seem like your best move is to try and help.
Maybe they already have good lab assistants, and the best way for you to help is to work at the coffee shop that gives them their afternoon caffeine jolt, or the nuclear plant that powers their lab, or the daycare where their kids go—in other words, have a normal job in the non-research economy. Those kinds of jobs are absolutely necessary to support more blue-sky stuff, so many people will have to do them. Why assume you are so much smarter than that entire group?
You left off the most important point. If you think a topic is important and that someone smarter than you is already working on it, it would seem like your best move is to try and help.
Well, you might think that you don’t have anything meaningful to contribute on top of their abilities.
You might be pretty smart, but believe they’re so much smarter that your mental faculties won’t be a significant asset to them, in which case you wouldn’t be any more help than a non-smart assistant performing grunt labor for them, whereas your intelligence would be a greater asset in a field not already dominated by such a great intellect.
As someone with limited mental faculties myself, I can see where that would present a problem. My usual approach is to ask for lots of feedback so I can get a sense of a) whether the ROI is worth it for my efforts and b) whether I’m just getting in the way. Feedback can come from a variety of sources, including independent observers.
This is the same mistaken pattern of thinking that leads people not to give to charitable causes on the grounds that poverty, or malaria, or whatever, is such a huge problem that anything they could do would be just a drop in the bucket. Of course what matters is the actual amount of good done, not what fraction it is of all the good there is to do or of the good others are doing.
I wouldn’t call it the same pattern at all. There’s no difference in comparative advantage between one monetary donation and another, and charities targeting causes such as malaria and poverty don’t suffer diminishing returns on donations within the range they’re likely to receive. On the other hand the differences in comparative advantage between one researcher and another within a particular field can be quite large, and a research subject can quite plausibly suffer diminishing returns on new researchers of similar abilities (see this quote already linked to in this topic.)
Think about X-risk in particular, just as a case point for your idea. Do you really think that in the entire, broad range of “all that relates to the important X-risks, there is nothing you can do?
Here is one think someone with a lot of balls but not much brainpower could do. Deliver the “Existential Risk as the Most Important Problem” paper to everyone they think suitable in a celebrity locator website of their choice. It’s not like the best brains will do it, so you as well might.
How about something different? Spend three days learning about the most effective legal cognitive enhancements, and send over a detailed email to researchers in that area saying you admire their work and think you can contribute by telling them about mind-sharpening pharmaceuticals.
I could go on, but I feel like this could be a new topic, something very similar to the munchkin idea topic, or my “pandemize vegetarianism” one…
Think about X-risk in particular, just as a case point for your idea. Do you really think that in the entire, broad range of “all that relates to the important X-risks, there is nothing you can do?
For it not to be a worthwhile avenue for you to pursue, there need not be nothing you can do. If you have no comparative advantage over other willing candidates in the activities which you can do, you might as well leave it to them, and go do something where you have a comparative advantage.
You left off the most important point. If you think a topic is important and that someone smarter than you is already working on it, it would seem like your best move is to try and help.
Having been in the position of the smart person dealing with someone less smart trying to “help” him, I can tell you this is not necessarily the case.
There’s lots of ways to help. For example, if I wanted to help you work on an important problem and you were so much smarter (or otherwise more competent) than I that I could never contribute any useful assistance to that project, I could instead offer to pay your rent or do your laundry or cook your meals or otherwise perform tasks better-suited to my comparatively limited skills, thereby freeing up your intellect to work full-time on the problem.
You left off the most important point. If you think a topic is important and that someone smarter than you is already working on it, it would seem like your best move is to try and help.
One argument in favor of leaving RALI A to HLA 1 and going off to fund your own puppy cuteness augmentation program is that you might not want to make a redundant effort. But I think the risk depends on how much progress has been made on the topic in question. If the big fish already have a pretty solid direction, ask someone who knows more about it than you do where the gaps are and go work on that. If you think you might get a response, go ahead and ask the big fish what needs working on. Fortune favors the bold.
Maybe they already have good lab assistants, and the best way for you to help is to work at the coffee shop that gives them their afternoon caffeine jolt, or the nuclear plant that powers their lab, or the daycare where their kids go—in other words, have a normal job in the non-research economy. Those kinds of jobs are absolutely necessary to support more blue-sky stuff, so many people will have to do them. Why assume you are so much smarter than that entire group?
Well, you might think that you don’t have anything meaningful to contribute on top of their abilities.
You might be pretty smart, but believe they’re so much smarter that your mental faculties won’t be a significant asset to them, in which case you wouldn’t be any more help than a non-smart assistant performing grunt labor for them, whereas your intelligence would be a greater asset in a field not already dominated by such a great intellect.
As someone with limited mental faculties myself, I can see where that would present a problem. My usual approach is to ask for lots of feedback so I can get a sense of a) whether the ROI is worth it for my efforts and b) whether I’m just getting in the way. Feedback can come from a variety of sources, including independent observers.
This is the same mistaken pattern of thinking that leads people not to give to charitable causes on the grounds that poverty, or malaria, or whatever, is such a huge problem that anything they could do would be just a drop in the bucket. Of course what matters is the actual amount of good done, not what fraction it is of all the good there is to do or of the good others are doing.
I wouldn’t call it the same pattern at all. There’s no difference in comparative advantage between one monetary donation and another, and charities targeting causes such as malaria and poverty don’t suffer diminishing returns on donations within the range they’re likely to receive. On the other hand the differences in comparative advantage between one researcher and another within a particular field can be quite large, and a research subject can quite plausibly suffer diminishing returns on new researchers of similar abilities (see this quote already linked to in this topic.)
Think about X-risk in particular, just as a case point for your idea. Do you really think that in the entire, broad range of “all that relates to the important X-risks, there is nothing you can do?
Here is one think someone with a lot of balls but not much brainpower could do. Deliver the “Existential Risk as the Most Important Problem” paper to everyone they think suitable in a celebrity locator website of their choice. It’s not like the best brains will do it, so you as well might.
How about something different? Spend three days learning about the most effective legal cognitive enhancements, and send over a detailed email to researchers in that area saying you admire their work and think you can contribute by telling them about mind-sharpening pharmaceuticals.
I could go on, but I feel like this could be a new topic, something very similar to the munchkin idea topic, or my “pandemize vegetarianism” one…
For it not to be a worthwhile avenue for you to pursue, there need not be nothing you can do. If you have no comparative advantage over other willing candidates in the activities which you can do, you might as well leave it to them, and go do something where you have a comparative advantage.
Having been in the position of the smart person dealing with someone less smart trying to “help” him, I can tell you this is not necessarily the case.
There’s lots of ways to help. For example, if I wanted to help you work on an important problem and you were so much smarter (or otherwise more competent) than I that I could never contribute any useful assistance to that project, I could instead offer to pay your rent or do your laundry or cook your meals or otherwise perform tasks better-suited to my comparatively limited skills, thereby freeing up your intellect to work full-time on the problem.
Or, in other words, comparative advantage for the win!