I think that there are a few plausible theories of the rationalist community and how they relate to the mission:
[0] Null hypothesis: no connection. This is obviously implausible if you’ve spent 3 seconds around the community or its mission.
1. The community and the mission are the same. Even the less immediately relevant activities create an intellectual and social milieu which is conducive to progress. The ability to engage with other intellectuals at low cost to oneself means that insights are shared between key individuals at faster rate. The community provides high value to the mission by enabling it. The mission provides high value to the community.
2. The community exists at least in part to play interference for the missionaries. Being able to do real thinking means a certain degree of insulation from the real world; having fewer demands on your time, having your basic human needs taken care of, having the ability to en. The community provides medium value to the mission by shielding it. The mission provides low value to the community, because the community’s strength derives from elsewhere. I think this is what you are advocating, and it’s one that I like.
3. The community [in aggregate] puts the minimum effort towards the mission to look convincing because if it were to openly admit that it doesn’t actually care about the mission people would leave. People are all here because pretending to have a shared goal is as good as actually having one in terms of bringing people together. The community provides slightly positive value to the mission, but selfishly. The mission provides high value to the community.
4. The community exists as a social pasttime with no clear purpose. It exists as a space not for real concern about x-risk, but primarily as a social outgrowth of the tech sector, a safe space for weirdness. The community detracts from the mission by exerting, even unintentionally, a social pressure upon missionaries to regress to the mean. The mission provides no value to the community.
I think that there are a few plausible theories of the rationalist community and how they relate to the mission:
[0] Null hypothesis: no connection. This is obviously implausible if you’ve spent 3 seconds around the community or its mission.
1. The community and the mission are the same. Even the less immediately relevant activities create an intellectual and social milieu which is conducive to progress. The ability to engage with other intellectuals at low cost to oneself means that insights are shared between key individuals at faster rate. The community provides high value to the mission by enabling it. The mission provides high value to the community.
2. The community exists at least in part to play interference for the missionaries. Being able to do real thinking means a certain degree of insulation from the real world; having fewer demands on your time, having your basic human needs taken care of, having the ability to en. The community provides medium value to the mission by shielding it. The mission provides low value to the community, because the community’s strength derives from elsewhere. I think this is what you are advocating, and it’s one that I like.
3. The community [in aggregate] puts the minimum effort towards the mission to look convincing because if it were to openly admit that it doesn’t actually care about the mission people would leave. People are all here because pretending to have a shared goal is as good as actually having one in terms of bringing people together. The community provides slightly positive value to the mission, but selfishly. The mission provides high value to the community.
4. The community exists as a social pasttime with no clear purpose. It exists as a space not for real concern about x-risk, but primarily as a social outgrowth of the tech sector, a safe space for weirdness. The community detracts from the mission by exerting, even unintentionally, a social pressure upon missionaries to regress to the mean. The mission provides no value to the community.