For effective altruists, I think (based on the topic and execution) it’s straightforwardly the #1 book you should use when you want to recruit new people to EA. It doesn’t actually talk much about EA, but I think starting people on this book will result in an EA that’s thriving more and doing more good five years from now, compared to the future EA that would exist if the top go-to resource were more obvious choices like The Precipice, Doing Good Better, the EA Handbook, etc.
I passed this review to people in a local EA group and some of them felt unclear on why you think this way, since (as you say) it doesn’t seem to talk about EA much. Could you elaborate on that part?
I didn’t read Scout Mindset yet, but I’ve listened to Julia’s interviews on podcasts about it, and I have read the other books that Rob mentions in that paragraph.
The reason I nodded when Rob wrote that was that Julia’s memetics are better. Her ideas are written in a way which stick in one’s mind, and thus spread more easily. I don’t think any of those other sources are bad—in fact I get more from them than I expect to from Scout Mindset—but Scout Mindset is more practically oriented (and optimized for today’s political climate) in a way which those other books are not.
It also operates at a different, earlier level in the “EA Funnel”: the level at which you can make people realize that more is possible. Those other books already require someone to be asking “how can I Do Good Better?” before they’ll pick it up.
I passed this review to people in a local EA group and some of them felt unclear on why you think this way, since (as you say) it doesn’t seem to talk about EA much. Could you elaborate on that part?
I didn’t read Scout Mindset yet, but I’ve listened to Julia’s interviews on podcasts about it, and I have read the other books that Rob mentions in that paragraph.
The reason I nodded when Rob wrote that was that Julia’s memetics are better. Her ideas are written in a way which stick in one’s mind, and thus spread more easily. I don’t think any of those other sources are bad—in fact I get more from them than I expect to from Scout Mindset—but Scout Mindset is more practically oriented (and optimized for today’s political climate) in a way which those other books are not.
It also operates at a different, earlier level in the “EA Funnel”: the level at which you can make people realize that more is possible. Those other books already require someone to be asking “how can I Do Good Better?” before they’ll pick it up.
Some discussion from the OP here