Sorry, but I don’t think this should be branded as “FHI of the West”.
I don’t think you personally or Lightcone share that much of an intellectual taste with FHI or Nick Bostrom—Lightcone seems firmly in the intellectual tradition of Berkeley, shaped by orgs like MIRI and CFAR. This tradition was often close to FHI thoughts, but also quite often at tension with it. My hot take is you particularly miss part of the generators of the taste which made FHI different from Berkeley. I sort of dislike the “FHI” brand being used in this way.
edit: To be clear I’m strongly in favour of creating more places for FHI-style thinking, just object to the branding / “let’s create new FHI” frame. Owen expressed some of the reasons better and more in depth
Totally agree, it definitely should not be branded this way if it launches.
I am thinking of “FHI of the West” here basically just as the kind of line directors use in Hollywood to get the theme of a movie across. Like “Jaws in Space” being famously the one line summary of the movie “Alien”.
It also started internally as a joke based on an old story of the University of Ann Arbor branding itself as “the Harvard of the West”, which was perceived to be a somewhat clear exaggeration at the time (and resulted in Kennedy giving a speech where he described Harvard jokingly as “The Michigan of the East” which popularized it). Describing something as “Harvard of the West” in a joking way seems to have popped up across the Internet in a bunch of different contexts. I’ll add that context to the OP, though like, it is a quite obscure reference.
If anything like this launches to a broader audience I expect no direct reference to FHI to remain. It just seems like a decent way to get some of the core pointers across.
I think the title is a somewhat obscure pun referencing the old saying that Stanford was the “Harvard of the West”. If one is not familiar with that saying, I guess some of the nuance is lost in the choice of term. (I personally had never heard that saying before recently, and I’m not even quite sure I’m referencing the right “X of the West” pun)
habryka did have a call with Nick Bostrom a few weeks back, to discuss his idea for an “FHI of the West”, and I’m quite confident he referred to it with that phrase on the call, too. Far as I’m aware Nick didn’t particularly react to it with more than a bit humor.
I also think the name is off, but for a different reason. When I hear “the west” with no other context, I assume it means this, which doesn’t make sense here, because the UK and FHI are very solidly part of The West. (I have not heard the “Harvard of the west” phrase and I’m guessing it’s pretty darn obscure, especially to the international audience of LW.)
I would imagine I would also react to it with smile in the context of an informal call. When used as brand / “fill interest form here” I just think it’s not a good name, even if I am sympathetic to proposals to create more places to do big picture thinking about future.
Sorry, but I don’t think this should be branded as “FHI of the West”.
I don’t think you personally or Lightcone share that much of an intellectual taste with FHI or Nick Bostrom—Lightcone seems firmly in the intellectual tradition of Berkeley, shaped by orgs like MIRI and CFAR. This tradition was often close to FHI thoughts, but also quite often at tension with it. My hot take is you particularly miss part of the generators of the taste which made FHI different from Berkeley. I sort of dislike the “FHI” brand being used in this way.
edit: To be clear I’m strongly in favour of creating more places for FHI-style thinking, just object to the branding / “let’s create new FHI” frame. Owen expressed some of the reasons better and more in depth
Totally agree, it definitely should not be branded this way if it launches.
I am thinking of “FHI of the West” here basically just as the kind of line directors use in Hollywood to get the theme of a movie across. Like “Jaws in Space” being famously the one line summary of the movie “Alien”.
It also started internally as a joke based on an old story of the University of Ann Arbor branding itself as “the Harvard of the West”, which was perceived to be a somewhat clear exaggeration at the time (and resulted in Kennedy giving a speech where he described Harvard jokingly as “The Michigan of the East” which popularized it). Describing something as “Harvard of the West” in a joking way seems to have popped up across the Internet in a bunch of different contexts. I’ll add that context to the OP, though like, it is a quite obscure reference.
If anything like this launches to a broader audience I expect no direct reference to FHI to remain. It just seems like a decent way to get some of the core pointers across.
Two notes:
I think the title is a somewhat obscure pun referencing the old saying that Stanford was the “Harvard of the West”. If one is not familiar with that saying, I guess some of the nuance is lost in the choice of term. (I personally had never heard that saying before recently, and I’m not even quite sure I’m referencing the right “X of the West” pun)
habryka did have a call with Nick Bostrom a few weeks back, to discuss his idea for an “FHI of the West”, and I’m quite confident he referred to it with that phrase on the call, too. Far as I’m aware Nick didn’t particularly react to it with more than a bit humor.
I also think the name is off, but for a different reason. When I hear “the west” with no other context, I assume it means this, which doesn’t make sense here, because the UK and FHI are very solidly part of The West. (I have not heard the “Harvard of the west” phrase and I’m guessing it’s pretty darn obscure, especially to the international audience of LW.)
The older nickname was “Cornell of the West.” Stanford was modeled after Cornell.
Wow the joke keeps being older.
I would imagine I would also react to it with smile in the context of an informal call. When used as brand / “fill interest form here” I just think it’s not a good name, even if I am sympathetic to proposals to create more places to do big picture thinking about future.