spencerg

Problems have hidden, repeatable structures. Here's my attempt to name them: 1. Smashed Watch There are so many issues at once that fixing one has no benefit unless you fix others too. 2. Leaky Pipe Fixing one problem causes the others to intensify. If you plug up one leak in...

At Clearer Thinking, we're running a collaboration survey about the psychological challenges of various kinds related to working on high-impact problems (e.g., existential risk, AI safety, climate change, animal welfare, global health, bio/nuclear safety, and other topics), and what people find helpful in dealing with those challenges. We are interested...

There are many competing theories of how society does and should function, from Karl Marx and Adam Smith to Steven Pinker and Eliezer Yudkowsky. These theories are often hard to understand - you may need to read an entire book (or dozens of articles) to feel like you get the...

I'm publishing a book that I think can fairly be described as a rationalist approach to self-improvement. Whereas many self-help books focus mainly on stories and what worked well for the author, our book takes a very different approach. My co-author, Jeremy Stevenson, and I (Spencer Greenberg) read over 100...

A lot of people are worried about AI. What are their worries? How worried are they? Are some demographics more worried than others? We ran a study to find out. In this article, we explain 16 concerns about AI that you might find it valuable to know about. We discuss,...

Hi all! I'm hiring for a part-time (5-10 hours per week) remote position: a professional/personal/research assistant. Please share this if you know someone that you think might be a good fit. This is a somewhat unusual assistant role involving a wide range of projects and tasks. Some are simple, some...

Hi all! I'm looking to hire a writer for 3-5 hours per week (who can put in that time reliably nearly every week) to co-author writing projects with me (on topics like psychology, philosophy, and society). I'm looking for someone who: 1) writes compelling yet logical (and well-reasoned) prose 2)...