There are different subproblems when it comes to coordination. One is a general problem of media. If the average effective altruist would spend a good chunk of their donation budget for Substack subscription of journalists that they believe to be very valuable for the public conversation, this might be better than them donating to big causes that billionaires can finance effectively without corrupting the cause.
As a society we do need some people to spend a lot of intellectual effort into doing research and thinking, and it would be great if that would be a higher priority for those who want to engage in Effective Altruism.
When it comes to your analysis of two groups, you miss the dynamic of scout and soldier mindset that Julia Galef describes. For the issues that are really important to us we are usually in the soldier mindset even if make a decision to agree to honest, rigorous exchange of information.
Maybe because most users here are already conscientious and strongly value truth-seeking, which makes improvement seem less necessary.
That’s not the case. CFAR was funded to help people to reason better and largely failed at that. It’s a problem that matter but it’s not an easy problem to solve.
Certainly agree with your point about donating to Substacks / journalists. Could be very impactful to have a writeup of that somewhere here or on the EA forum.
I’m familiar with Galef’s ideas; I would place “soldiers” in category 2. But yes, the distinction is very subtle and I did not specify it well enough.
I believe that sufficiently well designed UI for navigating debates/arguments/discussions can make it very difficult for people to disguise soldier mindsets via obfuscated (intentional or unintentional) communication and reasoning.
Imagine, for example:
User creates a strongly worded post that features a clear strawman and/or blatantly skips over serious, in-depth prior discussion on the same topic.
An LLM categorizes the argument to properly situate it within prior discussion and notifies the user that they A) do not appear to have an accurate understanding of the original source—specifically pointing out why B) have not yet explored the X counterarguments coming after that line of reasoning, and the Y that come after that.
This could be seen as an enhanced version of “community notes” aimed at situating shallow, under-researched takes within a larger “map of human thought.”
Whether this can scale and outcompete current systems is unknown, but it does truly seem promising for the enhancement of public discourse and like a step in the right direction.
Appreciate the comment, was helpful in clarifying my thoughts.
I’m familiar with Galef’s ideas; I would place “soldiers” in category 2.
And you would be wrong about that. Soldier mindset comes from caring about the outcome going a certain way. You can agree to be honest and rigorous but that doesn’t mean that you leave the soldier mindset because of that.
Probably, you are in soldier mindset yourself about this very issue. You have an idea of how debate should work and then have a motivation to have the details fit neatly and be able to be resolved just by specifying it better.
I think the disagreement stems from a lack of specificity on my part; ignore the specific description of the categories.
Probably, you are in soldier mindset yourself about this very issue.
I hold beliefs on it, sure. I am now interested in seeing if they reflect reality, and learning why/why not. Is this mindset inadequate, and what would make it more rational?
Separately—do you think there is promise in tools of the type I describe to combat soldier mindset at scale? I will definitely be reading into some of the CFAR resources, just curious to hear from you.
There are different subproblems when it comes to coordination. One is a general problem of media. If the average effective altruist would spend a good chunk of their donation budget for Substack subscription of journalists that they believe to be very valuable for the public conversation, this might be better than them donating to big causes that billionaires can finance effectively without corrupting the cause.
As a society we do need some people to spend a lot of intellectual effort into doing research and thinking, and it would be great if that would be a higher priority for those who want to engage in Effective Altruism.
When it comes to your analysis of two groups, you miss the dynamic of scout and soldier mindset that Julia Galef describes. For the issues that are really important to us we are usually in the soldier mindset even if make a decision to agree to honest, rigorous exchange of information.
That’s not the case. CFAR was funded to help people to reason better and largely failed at that. It’s a problem that matter but it’s not an easy problem to solve.
Certainly agree with your point about donating to Substacks / journalists. Could be very impactful to have a writeup of that somewhere here or on the EA forum.
I’m familiar with Galef’s ideas; I would place “soldiers” in category 2. But yes, the distinction is very subtle and I did not specify it well enough.
I believe that sufficiently well designed UI for navigating debates/arguments/discussions can make it very difficult for people to disguise soldier mindsets via obfuscated (intentional or unintentional) communication and reasoning.
Imagine, for example:
User creates a strongly worded post that features a clear strawman and/or blatantly skips over serious, in-depth prior discussion on the same topic.
An LLM categorizes the argument to properly situate it within prior discussion and notifies the user that they A) do not appear to have an accurate understanding of the original source—specifically pointing out why B) have not yet explored the X counterarguments coming after that line of reasoning, and the Y that come after that.
This could be seen as an enhanced version of “community notes” aimed at situating shallow, under-researched takes within a larger “map of human thought.”
Whether this can scale and outcompete current systems is unknown, but it does truly seem promising for the enhancement of public discourse and like a step in the right direction.
Appreciate the comment, was helpful in clarifying my thoughts.
And you would be wrong about that. Soldier mindset comes from caring about the outcome going a certain way. You can agree to be honest and rigorous but that doesn’t mean that you leave the soldier mindset because of that.
Probably, you are in soldier mindset yourself about this very issue. You have an idea of how debate should work and then have a motivation to have the details fit neatly and be able to be resolved just by specifying it better.
I think the disagreement stems from a lack of specificity on my part; ignore the specific description of the categories.
I hold beliefs on it, sure. I am now interested in seeing if they reflect reality, and learning why/why not. Is this mindset inadequate, and what would make it more rational?
Separately—do you think there is promise in tools of the type I describe to combat soldier mindset at scale? I will definitely be reading into some of the CFAR resources, just curious to hear from you.