This is interestingly parallel to the first part of NVC, which could be easily paraphrased as "What am I feeling, and why am I feeling it?" As with yours, the second part is meant to be broad and long-term, not situational: in that case, not a goal, but a need. In both cases I think it is indeed a useful way to think about goals and actions.
I'm a bit put off by your example, though; specifically, you seemed to stop as soon as you thought of one better thing, and both things are quite similar in that they both take the form "I will learn X, because X might be useful towards FAI dev." What if learning a new, directly-FAI-relevant skill is not actually the optimal course? For example, as you touch on briefly and then seem to bypass, the best way you can help FAI development might be to earn money and then donate to groups actively working on FAI. In that case, a good thing to do would be doing work which you can efficiently convert into money; this may have nothing to do with FAI, but instead call on skills you've already developed.
This is interestingly parallel to the first part of NVC, which could be easily paraphrased as "What am I feeling, and why am I feeling it?" As with yours, the second part is meant to be broad and long-term, not situational: in that case, not a goal, but a need. In both cases I think it is indeed a useful way to think about goals and actions.
Not mine! The Fundamental Questions were pioneered by Eliezer and Mike Blume respectively, I think. "What do you think you know, and why do you think you know it?" (and permutations thereof) is the First Question; "What are you doing, and why are you doing it?" is the Second. I sometimes forget that not everyone has absorbed all of Less Wrong canon! My bad.
For example, as you touch on briefly and then seem to bypass, the best way you can help FAI development might be to earn money and then donate to groups actively working on FAI. In that case, a good thing to do would be doing work which you can efficiently convert into money; this may have nothing to do with FAI, but instead call on skills you've already developed.
It might be, and it's worth thinking about more, but intelligence amplification research really needs to be done. I'm currently a volunteer for SIAI, so currently I donate time instead of money. But the main things I do for SIAI aren't IA-related (IA = intelligence amplification, like researching nootropics), they're "helping the Visiting Fellows program run"-related. If I plan on continuing to help in that role, then I should seek to improve at it, which I do do, but didn't feel like putting it in my example.
In that case, a good thing to do would be doing work which you can efficiently convert into money; this may have nothing to do with FAI, but instead call on skills you've already developed.
There is no obvious path here, as I have no skills already developed. I would have to develop new skills, in which case programming indeed would be the most obvious choice (though maybe not the best one). But currently IA work seems more important. (I'd rather not debate the relative merits of IA at this time; sorry.)
"The Fundamental Questions were pioneered by Eliezer and Mike Blume respectively, I think. "What do you think you know, and why do you think you know it?" (and permutations thereof) is the First Question; "What are you doing, and why are you doing it?" is the Second. I sometimes forget that not everyone has absorbed all of Less Wrong canon! My bad."
The order of these questions should be switched.
PS: How do you 'quote'?
There seem overwhelmingly many more ways to earn a useful surplus of money than there are ways to usefully research IA, so any given person (i.e. you) is more likely to be able to learn a skill from the large set of {skills which could earn surplus money} than to learn a skill from the much smaller set {skills useful for advancing the state of IA research}.
Particularly since your claim of "no skills already developed" ignores your ability and willingness to write, and your having a blog and associated skills, both of which are things some people earn plenty from.
There seem overwhelmingly many more ways to earn a useful surplus of money than there are ways to usefully research IA, so any given person (i.e. you) is more likely to be able to learn a skill from the large set of {skills which could earn surplus money} than to learn a skill from the much smaller set {skills useful for advancing the state of IA research}.
I already have a path laid out for IA research. Nobody's actually doing focused, systematized IA work; it's a really high value target right now, and it's something I'm already specialized for. In general I believe your advice holds, but I'm narcissistic enough and confident enough in my narcissism to think I'm a special case.
Particularly since your claim of "no skills already developed" ignores your ability and willingness to write, and your having a blog and associated skills, both of which are things some people earn plenty from.
Such people are almost invariably better writers than me. I could learn how to write better, but it's a skill I'd have to develop. I actually have a very good opportunity to make good money, but there are other things I'd like to do within the framework of SIAI first, I think. All my plans are in flux. I fly into Berkeley Tuesday; we'll see what happens after that.
"I'm learning to program because I want to maximize the probability of FAI development." ...That doesn't sound right. Maybe learning to program will help me think more rationally? But the connection is pretty loose, both from 'learning to program' to 'improving the relevant thinking skills' and from 'me thinking better' to 'a greater probability of FAI development'. Maybe learning to program will help me get a job to donate to FAI development? Money is the unit of caring, after all. (Note: cached thought, re-examine carefully.) But to be honest, my comparative advantage doesn't seem to be in making money. I should think about this more. Even so, I doubt programming is the best way for me to make money, since talking with Louie about it. Thus learning to program is probably a suboptimal action, though better than e.g. playing video games, if for whatever reason those were my only two options.What to do, then? I should probably go ask 'wedrifid' from LW for a recommended book on neurochemistry so I can better understand nootropics; the FAI team (whoever they end up being) will need to be pretty smart, after all. I can see a direct link from better understanding nootropics to a better chance of FAI. "I'm studying nootropic-relevant neurochemistry because I want to maximize the probability of FAI development." Probably still suboptimal, but a thorough improvement, and it will save me dozens of hours of suboptimal work. Yay for going meta! Wait though, are there ways to go more meta? After getting more familiar with the topic, I should probably find lots of people to talk to that know more about nootropics, and get information from them as to what nootropics will work best, and what areas of study I should be focusing on. That way I can save dozens of hours of suboptimal work. Yay for going meta! I should repeat this process until going meta no longer produces time-saving results.