I mean, sometimes we just dont have very good information about a topic we’d like to know about.
Perhaps we need to accept that a garbage information source can be worse than nothing, even though it is the only source we have—I suspect there is not really any way for me to know if there is a serious sex abuse problem in the LDS.
Maybe adversarial attacks are useful though: if there was a really bad issue in the bay area EA scene, the TIME article ought to have found juicier stories than what I’ve seen.
Thanks, Tim. Your second paragraph is basically what I was trying to get at with my response—often, we are faced with the choice of using potentially biased information sources and de-biasing them as best we can, or just throwing our hands up in the air and admitting we can’t obtain any reliable information.
I’d suggest the latter approach is actually bad for EA: if saw some sources claim that EA is a dangerous place for people like me, saw some sources claim it isn’t, and concluded I couldn’t obtain reliable information because all the information was infected by bias—I would stay far away from EA. Ditto in the LDS hypothetical—I would not let my child attend an LDS camp if I didn’t feel confident it was safe. (I wouldn’t allow my child to attend such a camp in any event because my beliefs do not line up with LDS theology, but you get the point.)
To your second point: I think that kind of reasoning often has validity, but there are several reasons to exercise caution in deploying it here. First, finding survivors is not easy; most survivors don’t exactly talk about their experience in a way that is easy for a reporter to find. Second, many survivors do not want to talk to the media (which is fine). Finally, media organizations have seen their budgets eviscerated in the Internet age, so the depth of investigative reporting they can afford for an article like this has gone down significantly.
My overall impression is generally consistent with what the article says: “The hard question for the Effective Altruism community is whether the case of the EA house in San Francisco is an isolated incident, with failures specific to the area and those involved, or whether it is an exemplar of a larger problem for the movement.” I think the article tells us at least that we need surveys, better reporting mechanisms, and the like to develop a more accurate picture of the scope of the problem.
Sure, I think we agree, with the caveat that if the media says anything whatsoever is dangerous, without showing the statistics to establish that it is scarier than driving to work every day, I automatically disbelieve them.
I mean, sometimes we just dont have very good information about a topic we’d like to know about.
Perhaps we need to accept that a garbage information source can be worse than nothing, even though it is the only source we have—I suspect there is not really any way for me to know if there is a serious sex abuse problem in the LDS.
Maybe adversarial attacks are useful though: if there was a really bad issue in the bay area EA scene, the TIME article ought to have found juicier stories than what I’ve seen.
Thanks, Tim. Your second paragraph is basically what I was trying to get at with my response—often, we are faced with the choice of using potentially biased information sources and de-biasing them as best we can, or just throwing our hands up in the air and admitting we can’t obtain any reliable information.
I’d suggest the latter approach is actually bad for EA: if saw some sources claim that EA is a dangerous place for people like me, saw some sources claim it isn’t, and concluded I couldn’t obtain reliable information because all the information was infected by bias—I would stay far away from EA. Ditto in the LDS hypothetical—I would not let my child attend an LDS camp if I didn’t feel confident it was safe. (I wouldn’t allow my child to attend such a camp in any event because my beliefs do not line up with LDS theology, but you get the point.)
To your second point: I think that kind of reasoning often has validity, but there are several reasons to exercise caution in deploying it here. First, finding survivors is not easy; most survivors don’t exactly talk about their experience in a way that is easy for a reporter to find. Second, many survivors do not want to talk to the media (which is fine). Finally, media organizations have seen their budgets eviscerated in the Internet age, so the depth of investigative reporting they can afford for an article like this has gone down significantly.
My overall impression is generally consistent with what the article says: “The hard question for the Effective Altruism community is whether the case of the EA house in San Francisco is an isolated incident, with failures specific to the area and those involved, or whether it is an exemplar of a larger problem for the movement.” I think the article tells us at least that we need surveys, better reporting mechanisms, and the like to develop a more accurate picture of the scope of the problem.
Sure, I think we agree, with the caveat that if the media says anything whatsoever is dangerous, without showing the statistics to establish that it is scarier than driving to work every day, I automatically disbelieve them.