I feel like a lot of this advice is telling me to do what I was going to do anyway. Which is why I wonder if you’re actually telling me not to do what I was going to do anyway, because it makes sense for advice posts to normally be about telling people to do something other than what they were normally going to do:
I don’t see ways to really help in a sizable way right now. I’m keeping my eyes open, and I’m churning through a giant backlog of things that might help a nonzero amount—but I think it’s important not to confuse this with taking meaningful bites out of a core problem the world is facing, and I won’t pretend to be doing the latter when I don’t see how to.
Since most of this post is interspersed with things like this, which say that the problem seems to you to be intractable, and that therefore most avenues of research will end up being dead-ends, it seems like you’re also advising people not to worry about things too much, just let the experts handle it, who also say that the problem is intractable and too hard.
If you’re saying “look at where everyone else has dropped the ball”, and I notice that everyone else has dropped the ball, on purpose, because they think the problem is intractable, then, I have to disagree strongly with that, if I am to follow your advice.
It’s just odd that you would say this and have it very openly apply to everything you’re saying as well.
I feel like a lot of this advice is telling me to do what I was going to do anyway. Which is why I wonder if you’re actually telling me not to do what I was going to do anyway, because it makes sense for advice posts to normally be about telling people to do something other than what they were normally going to do:
Since most of this post is interspersed with things like this, which say that the problem seems to you to be intractable, and that therefore most avenues of research will end up being dead-ends, it seems like you’re also advising people not to worry about things too much, just let the experts handle it, who also say that the problem is intractable and too hard.
If you’re saying “look at where everyone else has dropped the ball”, and I notice that everyone else has dropped the ball, on purpose, because they think the problem is intractable, then, I have to disagree strongly with that, if I am to follow your advice.
It’s just odd that you would say this and have it very openly apply to everything you’re saying as well.