I’m not comfortable setting aside the goodness of the consequences of the work
Reasonable. But if your project is likely to be ~neutral, that’s good to know too, no? Even if you don’t want to do more flywheel-y research, you could always pivot to doing something else entirely.
Hmm, maybe there was a miscommunication, I didn’t mean to suggest there were?(although maybe there are some, interesting question...)
I’m saying if you can predict that a secret research program is unlikely to succeed, you can do something different such as politics or a non-secret research program.
Yup, I misunderstood you, but I think we’re on the same page now.
The project being unlikely to succeed just goes into the EV calculation when comparing it to other projects. Secret projects also, definitionally, have fewer downsides, and my guess is that this latter term often dominates the nil modal outcome, since downsides for a huge swath of research are so high,
Reasonable. But if your project is likely to be ~neutral, that’s good to know too, no? Even if you don’t want to do more flywheel-y research, you could always pivot to doing something else entirely.
With a few minutes of effort, I can’t think of examples of people who are doing work that is:
Not motivated by money/status/power
Not motivated by their sense of what is good
Secret
Can you name any?
Hmm, maybe there was a miscommunication, I didn’t mean to suggest there were?(although maybe there are some, interesting question...)
I’m saying if you can predict that a secret research program is unlikely to succeed, you can do something different such as politics or a non-secret research program.
Yup, I misunderstood you, but I think we’re on the same page now.
The project being unlikely to succeed just goes into the EV calculation when comparing it to other projects. Secret projects also, definitionally, have fewer downsides, and my guess is that this latter term often dominates the nil modal outcome, since downsides for a huge swath of research are so high,