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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024

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hard-to-evaluate work at any large organization... learn to play the game

You can also be on the lookout for different games to play.

You seem to think it would be better if powerful EAs spent more time responding to comments on EA forum

I think this is too much of a simplification. I am making the argument that EA is structured such that leaders don't really aggregate the knowledge of their followers.

Can you give an example of any multi-billion dollar movement or organization that displays "blistering, white-hot competence"?

Some which could come to mind: Catholic Church in Spain 1910 to early 2000s, Apple, Amazon, SpaceX, Manhattan project, Israeli nuclear weapons project, Peter Thiel's general machinations, Linus Torvald's stewardship of the Linux project, competent Hollywood directors, Marcus Aurelius, Bismark's unification of Germany and his web of alliances, Chicago school, MIT's JPAL (endowment size uncertain though), the Jesuits, the World Central Kitchen.

provided concrete evidence that interventions are less effective than claimed

I discussed a previous one on the Motte here, here is a more recent one: CEA spends ~$1-2M/year to host the equivalent of a medium subreddit, or a forum with probably less discussion than The Motte itself.

offered concrete alternatives to this target audience.

Here are some blue-sky alternatives, Auftragstaktik is one particular thing I'd want to see more of.