Contributing to progress in technology

[Andy Dufresne]

The purpose of this post is to explain some of my ideas about
contributing to progress in technology. I want to see if anyone knows of
problems in my ideas I’m not aware of.

I like technology. I think technology provides tools I can use to make
my life better. I want more and better technology to exist in the world
so I have more tools to make my life better.

Lots of other people also like technology and will probably continue to
create it no matter what I do. That’s great. But I want to help that
process so there’s even more technology. The help I can do is what I
mean by contributing to progress in technology.

I do different things that I think help:
- Technical creation, where I make some technology that didn’t exist
before.
- Giving, where I give money (either as an investment or a donation) to
people who are trying to create a technology.
- Purchasing, where I buy technology others have already created which
provides them with money / incentive to create more.
- Wealth creation, where I do things that are generally productive and
create wealth. I think more wealth in general will indirectly result in
more wealth being used for technology creation.

I try to do some of each of the above. They can each be done either on
my own or in collaboration with others. Sometimes alone is more
effective; sometimes with others. Most of my giving and purchasing is
done alone or with my household members. Most of my technical creation
and wealth creation is done in collaboration with professional networks.

I think that where I have the skills and interest to do so, technical
creation helps more than giving, purchasing, or wealth creation.
That’s because in technical creation I can personally judge how
important working on a particular technology is to me, and I can
exercise personal control over how it gets created. I have the best
insights into how the work is going, and the most control over how
problems are solved.

With giving, I’m passing judgment on people’s plans but giving up
most or all control over how those plans are implemented. I’m trusting
that others’ description of what they are or will be doing is
accurate. I’m trusting in their problem solving abilities, and that
they’ll make choices I think are good, etc.

With purchasing, I’m passing judgment on something that’s already
been created. That’s useful but noisy feedback. The creator may take
that as a sign to create more of the same technology, even if that
wouldn’t actually help me much. Or they may incorrectly choose not to
put their profits into creating more of the same technology, even if
that would help me a lot.

With wealth creation, my control over what technology gets created and
the process of creation is the least. I’m just hoping that, with
additional wealth in the world, people will decide to do some good
things they wouldn’t have otherwise.

The amount of technical creation I can do is mostly limited by my skills
and interests. I think I’m missing out if I have skills and interests
in doing technical creation that I’m failing to use.

--Andy

[Max Kaye]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 14:01:31 -0700 "Andy Dufresne" <foxhunt1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The purpose of this post is to explain some of my ideas about
> contributing to progress in technology. I want to see if anyone knows of
> problems in my ideas I’m not aware of.

I think there are probably a few. IDK how big but I could see them being sticking points.

> I like technology. I think technology provides tools I can use to make
> my life better. I want more and better technology to exist in the world
> so I have more tools to make my life better.
>
> Lots of other people also like technology and will probably continue to
> create it no matter what I do. That’s great. But I want to help that
> process so there’s even more technology. The help I can do is what I
> mean by contributing to progress in technology.

I agree/follow so far.

> I do different things that I think help:
> - Technical creation, where I make some technology that didn’t exist
> before.
> - Giving, where I give money (either as an investment or a donation) to
> people who are trying to create a technology.
> - Purchasing, where I buy technology others have already created which
> provides them with money / incentive to create more.
> - Wealth creation, where I do things that are generally productive and
> create wealth. I think more wealth in general will indirectly result in
> more wealth being used for technology creation.

Do you think there are ways to help tech progress that you haven't listed and that might be better than these?

> I try to do some of each of the above.

Do you have good reasons for why you do each and in the proportions that you do? Would it be better to focus on fewer of them?

I can see some comparative advantage style reasons for doing all them them, but only if those were the only things you did. But you have the rest of your life to do too, so I'm not sure reasons like that would play out.

> They can each be done either on
> my own or in collaboration with others. Sometimes alone is more
> effective; sometimes with others. Most of my giving and purchasing is
> done alone or with my household members. Most of my technical creation
> and wealth creation is done in collaboration with professional networks.
>
> I think that where I have the skills and interest to do so, technical
> creation helps more than giving, purchasing, or wealth creation.

I think wealth creation sounds more valuable than raw technical creation. Tech creation can help you by e.g. automating stuff (and help other ppl too), but wealth creation can make a bigger difference if you're good at it. Being good at it is the hard part I think. Technical creation is much easier, so there are more ppl doing it, e.g. open source projects.

> That’s because in technical creation I can personally judge how
> important working on a particular technology is to me, and I can
> exercise personal control over how it gets created. I have the best
> insights into how the work is going, and the most control over how
> problems are solved.

It sounds like you might soon including some context about how good are (or not) at wealth creation.
Do you mean (or think) that *for you particularly, after considering circumstances and other context, tech creation is the better option* when you say "technical creation helps more"?

> With giving, I’m passing judgment on people’s plans but giving up
> most or all control over how those plans are implemented. I’m trusting
> that others’ description of what they are or will be doing is
> accurate. I’m trusting in their problem solving abilities, and that
> they’ll make choices I think are good, etc.

Yup

> With purchasing, I’m passing judgment on something that’s already
> been created. That’s useful but noisy feedback. The creator may take
> that as a sign to create more of the same technology, even if that
> wouldn’t actually help me much. Or they may incorrectly choose not to
> put their profits into creating more of the same technology, even if
> that would help me a lot.
>
> With wealth creation, my control over what technology gets created and
> the process of creation is the least. I’m just hoping that, with
> additional wealth in the world, people will decide to do some good
> things they wouldn’t have otherwise.

I'm not sure about this.

> my control over what technology gets created and
> the process of creation is the least

I think we must have different ideas of wealth creation. I think of wealth creation as things like building a business, buying/managing capital goods, creating/taking economic opportunities, etc.

Does that line up with your idea of wealth creation?

> people will decide to do some good
> things they wouldn’t have otherwise

I don't think that's safe or something you should take for granted. Some people might, but *which* people? (This is one of the reasons wealth creation is potentially really good, you can find ppl that will do good things they wouldn't have otherwise done)

> The amount of technical creation I can do is mostly limited by my skills
> and interests. I think I’m missing out if I have skills and interests
> in doing technical creation that I’m failing to use.

I can code lots of things in lots of different languages. I'm not using all my skills. I couldn't use them all even if I wanted b/c the options/varieties/etc are just too vast (it's like this for all of us even if it's hard to see). Some of my skills are more valuable than others (some skills are esoteric, and some skills are inefficient b/c of comparative advantage etc).

I *think* you might be in a similar boat to me. Do you think you're "missing out if [you] have skills and interests in doing technical creation that [you're] failing to use", but I'm not? Or am I missing out too? Are our situations qualitatively different?

--
Max
xk.io

I post my FI work/articles/exercise/practice here:
https://xertrov.github.io/fi

[Elliot Temple]

On Nov 20, 2020, at 1:01 PM, Andy Dufresne <foxhunt1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The purpose of this post is to explain some of my ideas about contributing to progress in technology. I want to see if anyone knows of problems in my ideas I’m not aware of.
>
> I like technology. I think technology provides tools I can use to make my life better. I want more and better technology to exist in the world so I have more tools to make my life better.
>
> Lots of other people also like technology and will probably continue to create it no matter what I do. That’s great. But I want to help that process so there’s even more technology. The help I can do is what I mean by contributing to progress in technology.
>
> I do different things that I think help:
> - Technical creation, where I make some technology that didn’t exist before.
> - Giving, where I give money (either as an investment or a donation) to people who are trying to create a technology.
> - Purchasing, where I buy technology others have already created which provides them with money / incentive to create more.
> - Wealth creation, where I do things that are generally productive and create wealth. I think more wealth in general will indirectly result in more wealth being used for technology creation.
>
> I try to do some of each of the above. They can each be done either on my own or in collaboration with others. Sometimes alone is more effective; sometimes with others. Most of my giving and purchasing is done alone or with my household members. Most of my technical creation and wealth creation is done in collaboration with professional networks.
>
> I think that where I have the skills and interest to do so, technical creation helps more than giving, purchasing, or wealth creation. That’s because in technical creation I can personally judge how important working on a particular technology is to me, and I can exercise personal control over how it gets created. I have the best insights into how the work is going, and the most control over how problems are solved.
>
> With giving, I’m passing judgment on people’s plans but giving up most or all control over how those plans are implemented. I’m trusting that others’ description of what they are or will be doing is accurate. I’m trusting in their problem solving abilities, and that they’ll make choices I think are good, etc.

FYI you’re also trusting other’s judgments when you outsource some critical/philosophy thinking to them.

This applies even when you do the thinking in your own head (rather than asking them to tell you an answer) using ideas you picked up from your culture that they created. It applies if you haven’t done adequate critical review of the ideas, in which case you are not adequately relying on your own considered judgment. This is extremely common with many ideas, and a lot of the picking up ideas with inadequate criticism happened in childhood and isn’t clearly remembered.

> With purchasing, I’m passing judgment on something that’s already been created. That’s useful but noisy feedback. The creator may take that as a sign to create more of the same technology, even if that wouldn’t actually help me much. Or they may incorrectly choose not to put their profits into creating more of the same technology, even if that would help me a lot.
>
> With wealth creation, my control over what technology gets created and the process of creation is the least. I’m just hoping that, with additional wealth in the world, people will decide to do some good things they wouldn’t have otherwise.
>
> The amount of technical creation I can do is mostly limited by my skills and interests. I think I’m missing out if I have skills and interests in doing technical creation that I’m failing to use.

There are major threats to the value of technology in people’s lives, like government regulation and using technology for bad goals. There are also major problems with training/education for scientists, programmers, etc. We’d get far more value from technology if the framework or context surrounding it was better.

You can leave these problems to others if you want to. But FYI I think these issues need progress more than technology itself does. A spectacular enough technology breakthrough would make a huge difference anyway, but contributing a little bit of incremental, gradual technology improvement will accomplish less than working on these related issues.

A reason for this is many people prefer working directly on technology, so that’s relatively overserved. These other issues are seen as more unpleasant or as things to avoid, so they’re relatively underserved with effort to deal with them. E.g. lots of good people avoid being regulators or interacting with regulators, which leaves regulation to worse people who screw it up more.

Philosophy is an area of supreme importance and relevance, *and* it’s very interesting and pleasant in various ways. It, too, is knowledge work where you use your mind to figure stuff out. It’s not like dealing with govt regulation. And it’s completely unavoidable even in a utopia: you use philosophy ideas (critical thinking, rationality, etc.) while trying to work on technology. In a better world it’d be much safer to specialize in technology and just get a basic education in philosophy stuff and leave worrying about the details to experts, but in the current world that’s very dangerous, not just for world progress but also to every individual who does it and runs a major risk of being personally screwed (e.g. wasted or destructive career, or various life disasters).

The problem from my pov is many people choosing to focus on e.g. technology instead of philosophy. There are massive shortages of brains in literally the most important field, as well as in a variety of important/consequential fields like government regulation, due to many individuals opting for a field they like better. The cause of this for philosophy is that the field has a well-deserved bad reputation because most philosophy being taught and promoted is awful (plus it’s a hard field to make progress in on your own, because it’s hard to self-evaluate your ideas objectively to tell if they’re any good or what’s working, whereas with technology or science it’s easier to make something yourself and then figure out if it works or not, in addition to better colleagues being available).

Elliot Temple
www.curi.us

[Andy Dufresne]

Ya. I can imagine a set of kinda similar options for contributing to FI
philosophy progress:
- Creating original FI content
- Seriously studying FI and then promoting what I learned
- Buying FI products
- Creating wealth with whatever ideas I have. Some of the wealth might
then be used to make progress in FI

The need for progress doesn’t seem to motivate me to do much. Interest
does. I don’t currently have much conscious control over my interests.
And I don’t already have much interest in developing conscious control
over my interests. So it’s an impasse for now. I have some ideas about
how to get past that impasse, but my life isn’t currently set up well
to try them.

Another way of explaining the situation: One of the problems that
contributing to progress in technology solves for me is doing something
that doesn’t feel like a waste of my life. Philosophy doesn’t
currently solve that problem.

I grant the possibility that contributing to progress in technology
might turn out to **actually be** a waste of my life. I think that’s
unlikely in absolute terms, but pretty likely in relative terms. I
don’t see any way around that possibility with anything else I’ve
considered doing though, including philosophy.

Working on philosophy doesn’t feel as much like a good use of my life
as working on technology. You already mentioned one of the main reasons:
“it’s easier to make something yourself and then figure out if it
works or not”. Another reason is that I’ve already made things in
technology that worked, so I have confidence in my abilities there.
Whereas in philosophy I lack confidence.

My confidence could be misplaced. Maybe I’m actually better at
philosophy than I am at technology. Again in absolute terms I think
that’s unlikely, but in relative terms it’s pretty likely. One
indication it might be the case is that I frequently notice philosophy
errors in people with technical skills I respect. That happens more than
I notice technical errors in people with philosophy skills I respect.
However, the second group is an especially small sample size - mainly
you and a handful of other FI regulars.

--Andy

[Elliot Temple]

Yeah, philosophy has such a skill shortage that I’m confident that you’re the Pth best in the world at philosophy currently, and Tth best at technology, and P < T (lower numbers are better). I imagine the gap between P and T is large in absolute numbers (e.g. T is thousands larger than P) and relatively (e.g. T is 100x larger than P).

Relative skill is not what dictates work experience though. You could be the 10th best and something and still *correctly* think you’re bad at it and that your activities aren’t very productive.

Elliot Temple
www.elliottemple.com

[Elliot Temple]

It’s also a kinda unfair sample cuz I and some other FI regulars *work in technology professionally*. I’ve seriously studied both fields. That’s different than the error rate of a philosopher who has only dabbled in technology (which would be more fairly comparable to the error rate of a technologist who had only dabbled in philosophy).

Elliot Temple
www.curi.us

[Andy Dufresne]

On 22 Nov 2020, at 1:49, Max Kaye wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 14:01:31 -0700 "Andy Dufresne"
> <foxhunt1...@gmail.com> wrote:


>> With wealth creation, my control over what technology gets created
>> and
>> the process of creation is the least. I’m just hoping that, with
>> additional wealth in the world, people will decide to do some good
>> things they wouldn’t have otherwise.
>
> I'm not sure about this.
>
>> my control over what technology gets created and
>> the process of creation is the least
>
> I think we must have different ideas of wealth creation. I think of
> wealth creation as things like building a business, buying/managing
> capital goods, creating/taking economic opportunities, etc.
>
> Does that line up with your idea of wealth creation?

Yes, but creating technology creates wealth too. And creating tech has
an additional benefit I care about. I’ll expand on this with an
example:

Suppose I create a new technology I’ll just call the “widget”. The
widget tech saves 100 million dollars in the world and is also worth 1
million dollars to me personally cuz I really like that it exists and am
proud that I created it. I also get paid 100,000 dollars for creating
it.

That’s 100 million dollars of wealth created by the widget, of which I
personally capture 100,000 dollars. Plus I get 1 million dollars worth
of feeling good about the technology (which isn’t wealth. It’s just
feels). Additionally, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars
the widget saved the world will get used to create still more
technology. And I can spend some of the 100,000 dollars I got paid
buying some tech that other people created.

Now instead of creating the widget, suppose I spend the time studying
the bond market and spot an inefficiency. By setting up a sophisticated
trade, I save bond sellers 100 million dollars and make a profit of
100,000 dollars on the trade myself. I don’t get any feels from bonds
like I do widgets though.

So that’s also 100 million dollars of wealth created by the bond
trade, of which I personally capture 100,000 dollars. Like with the
widget, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars I saved the bond
sellers will get spent to create some technology (and feel good about
that). And I can use some of my 100,000 dollars to purchase technology
that’s already been created (and feel good about that too). But
there’s no direct technology like the widget I can point to and feel
really good and proud about having created.

Setting feelings aside, I’m economically indifferent to making the
widget vs. doing the bond trade. But in practice, the widget is a bunch
more satisfying to me.

--Andy

[Andy Dufresne]

Ya. I think the 10th best person at philosophy might still not create
net value in philosophy. Whereas I think the 100,000th best person at
tech’s contributions are small, but still net positive in technology.

--Andy

[Max Kaye]

On Sun, 22 Nov 2020 17:50:36 -0700 "Andy Dufresne" <foxhunt1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 22 Nov 2020, at 1:49, Max Kaye wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 14:01:31 -0700 "Andy Dufresne"
> > <foxhunt1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >> With wealth creation, my control over what technology gets created
> >> and
> >> the process of creation is the least. I’m just hoping that, with
> >> additional wealth in the world, people will decide to do some good
> >> things they wouldn’t have otherwise.
> >
> > I'm not sure about this.
> >
> >> my control over what technology gets created and
> >> the process of creation is the least
> >
> > I think we must have different ideas of wealth creation. I think of
> > wealth creation as things like building a business, buying/managing
> > capital goods, creating/taking economic opportunities, etc.
> >
> > Does that line up with your idea of wealth creation?
>
> Yes, but creating technology creates wealth too. And creating tech has
> an additional benefit I care about. I’ll expand on this with an
> example:

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree with all of this example, but I'm not sure that really matters.

> Suppose I create a new technology I’ll just call the “widget”. The
> widget tech saves 100 million dollars in the world and is also worth 1
> million dollars to me personally cuz I really like that it exists and am
> proud that I created it. I also get paid 100,000 dollars for creating
> it.

There are 3 ways I can think of measuring something like this.

1. is that it's realised immediately
2. is over lifetime of the widget technology (until it's superseded)
3. is the difference between you releasing it now and person X releasing something equivalent in 12 months if you didn't release it now

> That’s 100 million dollars of wealth created by the widget, of which I
> personally capture 100,000 dollars. Plus I get 1 million dollars worth
> of feeling good about the technology (which isn’t wealth. It’s just
> feels). Additionally, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars
> the widget saved the world will get used to create still more
> technology. And I can spend some of the 100,000 dollars I got paid
> buying some tech that other people created.
>
> Now instead of creating the widget, suppose I spend the time studying
> the bond market and spot an inefficiency. By setting up a sophisticated
> trade, I save bond sellers 100 million dollars and make a profit of
> 100,000 dollars on the trade myself. I don’t get any feels from bonds
> like I do widgets though.

If this is a systematic/structural inefficiency then I think it's like the widget. If it's a one time thing then maybe not. By systematic inefficiency I mean: a mistake that everyone was making and one that can be solved forever with new behaviors.

> So that’s also 100 million dollars of wealth created by the bond
> trade, of which I personally capture 100,000 dollars. Like with the
> widget, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars I saved the bond
> sellers will get spent to create some technology (and feel good about
> that). And I can use some of my 100,000 dollars to purchase technology
> that’s already been created (and feel good about that too). But
> there’s no direct technology like the widget I can point to and feel
> really good and proud about having created.
>
> Setting feelings aside, I’m economically indifferent to making the
> widget vs. doing the bond trade. But in practice, the widget is a bunch
> more satisfying to me.
>
> --Andy

In my original email I asked (after the list of 4 methods of helping)

> Do you think there are ways to help tech progress that you haven't listed and that might be better than these?

I had a 5th option in mind which was philosophical contribution. e.g. Elliot tried to talk to MIRI https://curi.us/2065

[Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2020 at 05:50:36PM -0700, Andy Dufresne wrote:

> Suppose I create a new technology I’ll just call the “widget”. The widget tech saves 100 million dollars in the world and is also worth 1 million dollars to me personally cuz I really like that it exists and am proud that I created it. I also get paid 100,000 dollars for creating it.
>
> That’s 100 million dollars of wealth created by the widget, of which I personally capture 100,000 dollars. Plus I get 1 million dollars worth of feeling good about the technology (which isn’t wealth. It’s just feels). Additionally, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars the widget saved the world will get used to create still more technology. And I can spend some of the 100,000 dollars I got paid buying some tech that other people created.
>
> Now instead of creating the widget, suppose I spend the time studying the bond market and spot an inefficiency. By setting up a sophisticated trade, I save bond sellers 100 million dollars and make a profit of 100,000 dollars on the trade myself. I don’t get any feels from bonds like I do widgets though.
>
> So that’s also 100 million dollars of wealth created by the bond trade, of which I personally capture 100,000 dollars. Like with the widget, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars I saved the bond sellers will get spent to create some technology (and feel good about that). And I can use some of my 100,000 dollars to purchase technology that’s already been created (and feel good about that too). But there’s no direct technology like the widget I can point to and feel really good and proud about having created.
>
> Setting feelings aside, I’m economically indifferent to making the widget vs. doing the bond trade. But in practice, the widget is a bunch more satisfying to me.

Have you ever listened to Beyond the Goal [1]? What if you created ideas like Goldratt's that could significantly improve the way people run factories, manage projects, distribute goods, or deal with other aspects of their business? Would that be satisfying to you?

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Goal-Eliyahu-M-Goldratt-audiobook/dp/B000ELJ9NO

[Andy Dufresne]

On 24 Nov 2020, at 19:45, Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum wrote:

> Have you ever listened to Beyond the Goal [1]?

No.

> What if you created ideas like Goldratt's that could significantly
> improve the way people run factories, manage projects, distribute
> goods, or deal with other aspects of their business? Would that be
> satisfying to you?

I don’t know for sure since I’ve never done that. My guess is just
creating the ideas wouldn’t be satisfying.

My ideas would need to be implemented before I would be satisfied. I can
guess at least two problems with that though:
- The need to convince others my ideas are actually good before they get
implemented.
- Difficulty in separating the impact of my ideas from other ideas the
implementers got elsewhere.

--Andy

[Andy Dufresne]

I intended #2, though with an implied discount to present value for
payoffs in the future.

The problem with #1 is it doesn’t recognize value received any time
other than “immediately”. Non-immediate value is an important
consideration; not something to be discarded arbitrarily.

The problem with #3 is that if I invent widgets, person X doesn’t have
to and can presumably invent something else. Though of course they might
not invent anything else, either due to lack of desire or lack of
knowledge/skill for anything other than widgets. Either way though, both
having widgets earlier and freeing up person X would be part of the
lifetime value which I think is already covered in #2.

>> That’s 100 million dollars of wealth created by the widget, of
>> which I
>> personally capture 100,000 dollars. Plus I get 1 million dollars
>> worth
>> of feeling good about the technology (which isn’t wealth. It’s
>> just
>> feels). Additionally, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars
>> the widget saved the world will get used to create still more
>> technology. And I can spend some of the 100,000 dollars I got paid
>> buying some tech that other people created.
>>
>> Now instead of creating the widget, suppose I spend the time studying
>> the bond market and spot an inefficiency. By setting up a
>> sophisticated
>> trade, I save bond sellers 100 million dollars and make a profit of
>> 100,000 dollars on the trade myself. I don’t get any feels from
>> bonds
>> like I do widgets though.
>
> If this is a systematic/structural inefficiency then I think it's like
> the widget. If it's a one time thing then maybe not. By systematic
> inefficiency I mean: a mistake that everyone was making and one that
> can be solved forever with new behaviors.

What do you mean by “it's like the widget”? I don’t see a
significant difference between a systemic/structural inefficiency vs. a
one time thing *with equivalent lifetime economic values*. It’s
relatively simple and, for me, unemotional to translate a payment stream
into a lump sum or vice-versa if I strongly prefer one over the other. I
don’t just mean in terms of math: in the real world the right to
future payment streams of nearly any kind can be bought and sold like
other property. You can trade a payment stream for a lump sum, or a lump
sum for a payment stream. There’s a cost to such trades, but it’s
not prohibitive for lots of them being done.

As a result I don’t think I’d feel different about saving bond
sellers 100 million dollars all at once versus saving bond sellers 100
million dollars of net present value received over an indefinite time
frame. Neither would feel like creating the widget to me.

>> So that’s also 100 million dollars of wealth created by the bond
>> trade, of which I personally capture 100,000 dollars. Like with the
>> widget, I can hope that some of the 100 million dollars I saved the
>> bond
>> sellers will get spent to create some technology (and feel good about
>> that). And I can use some of my 100,000 dollars to purchase
>> technology
>> that’s already been created (and feel good about that too). But
>> there’s no direct technology like the widget I can point to and
>> feel
>> really good and proud about having created.
>>
>> Setting feelings aside, I’m economically indifferent to making the
>> widget vs. doing the bond trade. But in practice, the widget is a
>> bunch
>> more satisfying to me.
>>
>> --Andy
>
> In my original email I asked (after the list of 4 methods of helping)
>
>> Do you think there are ways to help tech progress that you haven't
>> listed and that might be better than these?
>
> I had a 5th option in mind which was philosophical contribution. e.g.
> Elliot tried to talk to MIRI https://curi.us/2065

I grant that Elliot’s post could be a valuable contribution. I lack
the knowledge/skill to make a guess at its value that I’d consider a
good guess though. I also lack confidence in my ability to create
something similar.

--Andy

[Max Kaye]

Here's my guess as to what's going on:

It's hard to produce philosophy work that endures. It's easy to produce technology work that endures.

e.g. with tech, a website with some bugs still works and can do good stuff.

but what would 'some bugs' mean with philosophy work? well, for *most* philosophy work -- which is probably a one-off, like helping someone solve a problem, understand something, etc -- the bugs are like problems with the ideas. when you get to applying philosophy, the errors can be much larger (than abstract/fundamental/core philosophy) and there's a lot more error tolerance. I think that's probably b/c the application of ideas is usually parochial -- like limited in scope. there's a lot of spare capacity so the ideas don't need to be perfectly understood to be applied.

core philosophy isn't like that -- core philosophy has an *incredibly* low tolerance for error. It's super hard to produce core philosophy work.

applying philosophy is easy, but doing core philosophy is hard, *and* you need to do core philosophy stuff to get better at applying philosophy. Practically: the *breakpoints* that exist in learning philosophy are far apart, *so most ppl don't try to achieve them*.

tech is almost the opposite in many ways. there are lots of things to do/work on, not much work needs to be done in like core tech, and even when there is work to do in core tech, there are ways to contribute if you're not that good at tech. ppl still need to make websites or help with logistics or do payroll. combined with the high tolerance for errors-in-ideas, and the fact that code is in such high demand, it's fairly easy to write some stuff that is helpful. the bar gets even lower when combined with specialization (e.g. writing code for an arduino to act like a NES controller).

I think, basically, progress works with a kind of ratcheting effect.

tech has lots of teeth on the ratchet (lots of ways to contribute) and once you make progress it tends to stay there, even if it has problems, until it's superseded.

the ratchet of philosophy has sparse teeth. it takes *a lot* of effort and skill to get the ratchet to move along one tooth. it can't be reliably done with more ppl, or more brains (unless those ppl were good philosophers already). it can only be done reliably be someone with the best ideas and thinking skills, and that requires *incredible* consistency over many many ideas, something most ppl don't have (or seem to want).