Aella is a leader in the rationalist community. As such, she’s interacted with us frequently outside the forum and a lot of EAs have developed a lot of trust in her over a long period of time. I can see how this post wouldn’t be as persuasive for someone who didn’t know of her through that.
What do you mean by “leader in the rationalist community”? I neither know aella well nor the rationalist community well and am unsure where the “EAs have developed a lot of trust in her over a long period of time” comes from. Obviously not saying she’s untrustworthy!
In many areas, the EA community and rationalist community overlap a lot (for example, in the San Francisco Bay Area where I socialize , and in the AI alignment cause area where I have some experience). I realize this isn’t true in a lot of parts of EA.
The part of the post this comment is objecting to relies on that prior trust and familiarity with the rationalist community. If you’re not its’ target audience, I wasn’t objecting to you not getting anything useful out if it. I was just trying to provide some helpful context for why so many people have upvoted this post despite Aella’s sparse and recent presence on the forum.
I disagreed but didn’t downvote. I mostly just found the word “leader” to be extremely strong. It might be the case that this is true in the SF scene (but I wouldn’t know given I have no exposure to that) but I had never heard of aella prior to this post and would guess this is likely true for many people who live outside of SF. Also, leader usually implies some level of giving directions, having power, commanding, etc which I found pretty unlikely given what I know of EA organizational structure and helped the fact I had never heard of this person.
I also disagreevoted for similar reasons. I’m familiar with Aella, but I would call her well known rather than a leader, such that similar to the top level comment here I don’t really know how much to update on her description of events.
I didn’t downvote/disagreevote either comment, but clearly if one disagrees that Aella is a leader then they may disagreevote. similarly, if they think the merits of this post stands independently of who Aella is as a leader and is based on the idea that she is famous, then they might also disagree with the last sentence.
Aella is a leader in the rationalist community. As such, she’s interacted with us frequently outside the forum and a lot of EAs have developed a lot of trust in her over a long period of time. I can see how this post wouldn’t be as persuasive for someone who didn’t know of her through that.
What do you mean by “leader in the rationalist community”? I neither know aella well nor the rationalist community well and am unsure where the “EAs have developed a lot of trust in her over a long period of time” comes from. Obviously not saying she’s untrustworthy!
In many areas, the EA community and rationalist community overlap a lot (for example, in the San Francisco Bay Area where I socialize , and in the AI alignment cause area where I have some experience). I realize this isn’t true in a lot of parts of EA.
The part of the post this comment is objecting to relies on that prior trust and familiarity with the rationalist community. If you’re not its’ target audience, I wasn’t objecting to you not getting anything useful out if it. I was just trying to provide some helpful context for why so many people have upvoted this post despite Aella’s sparse and recent presence on the forum.
Can someone who downvoted my replies explain why they chose to? I didn’t think I was saying anything controversial, so I’m confused.
I disagreed but didn’t downvote. I mostly just found the word “leader” to be extremely strong. It might be the case that this is true in the SF scene (but I wouldn’t know given I have no exposure to that) but I had never heard of aella prior to this post and would guess this is likely true for many people who live outside of SF. Also, leader usually implies some level of giving directions, having power, commanding, etc which I found pretty unlikely given what I know of EA organizational structure and helped the fact I had never heard of this person.
I also disagreevoted for similar reasons. I’m familiar with Aella, but I would call her well known rather than a leader, such that similar to the top level comment here I don’t really know how much to update on her description of events.
(I’m also confused about it and the disagreement votes in your „ Aella is a leader in…“ comment.)
I didn’t downvote/disagreevote either comment, but clearly if one disagrees that Aella is a leader then they may disagreevote. similarly, if they think the merits of this post stands independently of who Aella is as a leader and is based on the idea that she is famous, then they might also disagree with the last sentence.
Thanks for explaining!