EAs invented neither effectiveness nor altruism, as Buddha, Quakers, Gandhi, Elizabeth Fry, Equiano and many others can attest!
EAs tend to be slow/behind the curve on coms and behavioural science and Implementation Science, and social science/realpolitik in general. But they do learn over time.
This is a good question hmm. Now I’m trying to come up with specific concrete cases, I actually feel less confident of this claim.
Examples that did come to mind:
I recall reading somewhere about early LessWrong authors reinventing concepts that were already worked out before in philosophic disciplines (particularly in decision theory?). Can’t find any post on this though.
More subtly, we use a lot of jargon. Some terms were basically imported from academic research (say into cognitive biases) and given a shiny new nerdy name that appeals to our incrowd. In the case of CFAR, I think they were very deliberate about renaming some concepts, also to make them more intuitive for workshops participants (eg. implementation intentions → trigger action plans/patterns, pre-mortem → murphijitsu).
(After thinking about this, I called with someone who is doing academic research on Buddhist religion. They independently mentioned LW posts on ‘noticing’, which basically is a new name for a mediation technique that has been practiced for millennia.)
Renaming is not reinventing of course, but the new terms do make it harder to refer back to sources from established research literature. Further, some smart amateur blog authors like to synthesise and intellectually innovate upon existing research (eg. see Scott Alexander’s speculative posts, or my post above ^^).
The lack of referencing while building up innovations can cause us to misinterpret and write stuff that poorly reflects previous specialist research. We’re building up our own separated literature database.
A particular example is Robin Hanson ‘near-far mode’, from a concise and well-articulated review paper about psychological distance to the community, which spawned a lot of subsequent posts about implications for thinking in the community (but with little referencing to other academic studies or analyses). E.g. Hanson’s idea that people are hypocritical when they signal high-construal values but are more honest when they think concretely – a psychology researcher who seems rigorously minded said to me that he dug into Hanson’s claim but that conclusions from other studies don’t support this.
My impression from local/regional/national EA community building is that a many organisers (including me) either tried to work out how to run their group from first principles, or consulted with other more experienced organisers. We could also have checked for good practices from and consulted with other established youth movements. I have seen plenty of write-ups that go through the former, but little or none of the other.
I recall reading somewhere about early LessWrong authors reinventing concepts that were already worked out before in philosophic disciplines (particularly in decision theory?). Can’t find any post on this though.
Could you elaborate on this? Which wheels are you thinking of?
EAs invented neither effectiveness nor altruism, as Buddha, Quakers, Gandhi, Elizabeth Fry, Equiano and many others can attest!
EAs tend to be slow/behind the curve on coms and behavioural science and Implementation Science, and social science/realpolitik in general. But they do learn over time.
This is a good question hmm. Now I’m trying to come up with specific concrete cases, I actually feel less confident of this claim.
Examples that did come to mind:
I recall reading somewhere about early LessWrong authors reinventing concepts that were already worked out before in philosophic disciplines (particularly in decision theory?). Can’t find any post on this though.
More subtly, we use a lot of jargon. Some terms were basically imported from academic research (say into cognitive biases) and given a shiny new nerdy name that appeals to our incrowd. In the case of CFAR, I think they were very deliberate about renaming some concepts, also to make them more intuitive for workshops participants (eg. implementation intentions → trigger action plans/patterns, pre-mortem → murphijitsu).
(After thinking about this, I called with someone who is doing academic research on Buddhist religion. They independently mentioned LW posts on ‘noticing’, which basically is a new name for a mediation technique that has been practiced for millennia.)
Renaming is not reinventing of course, but the new terms do make it harder to refer back to sources from established research literature. Further, some smart amateur blog authors like to synthesise and intellectually innovate upon existing research (eg. see Scott Alexander’s speculative posts, or my post above ^^).
The lack of referencing while building up innovations can cause us to misinterpret and write stuff that poorly reflects previous specialist research. We’re building up our own separated literature database.
A particular example is Robin Hanson ‘near-far mode’, from a concise and well-articulated review paper about psychological distance to the community, which spawned a lot of subsequent posts about implications for thinking in the community (but with little referencing to other academic studies or analyses).
E.g. Hanson’s idea that people are hypocritical when they signal high-construal values but are more honest when they think concretely – a psychology researcher who seems rigorously minded said to me that he dug into Hanson’s claim but that conclusions from other studies don’t support this.
My impression from local/regional/national EA community building is that a many organisers (including me) either tried to work out how to run their group from first principles, or consulted with other more experienced organisers. We could also have checked for good practices from and consulted with other established youth movements. I have seen plenty of write-ups that go through the former, but little or none of the other.
Definitely give me counter-examples!
See Eliezer’s Sequences and Mainstream Academia and scroll down for my comment there. Also https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/XkNXsi6bsxxFaL5FL/ai-cooperation-is-already-studied-in-academia-as-program (According to these sources, AFAWK, at least some of the decision theory ideas developed on LW were not worked out already in academia.)
I hadn’t read about these specific cases yet, thanks! I appreciate your nuances here