One of the things people (rightly) use their brains for is deciding what things merit closer attention. I don’t think it’s fair to say that Viliam didn’t use his brain, merely because the conclusion from using his brain was “I don’t care enough about this to examine it more closely right now”. And his question about the outside view isn’t about how he should have evaluated Arbital before but about how he should evaluate MIRI activities in the future. (Where, again, “not worth looking closer right now” is a perfectly legitimate evaluation.)
Are you suggesting that as a matter of general policy one shouldn’t use the outside view to evaluate how likely something is to succeed, to have large impact, etc.? Or does that only apply to certain projects, and if so which ones?
One of the things people (rightly) use their brains for is deciding what things merit closer attention. I don’t think it’s fair to say that Viliam didn’t use his brain, merely because the conclusion from using his brain was “I don’t care enough about this to examine it more closely right now”. And his question about the outside view isn’t about how he should have evaluated Arbital before but about how he should evaluate MIRI activities in the future. (Where, again, “not worth looking closer right now” is a perfectly legitimate evaluation.)
Are you suggesting that as a matter of general policy one shouldn’t use the outside view to evaluate how likely something is to succeed, to have large impact, etc.? Or does that only apply to certain projects, and if so which ones?