How are we going to deal emotionally with the first big newspaper attack against EA?
EA is pretty powerful in terms of impact and funding.
It seems only an amount of time before there is a really nasty article written about the community or a key figure.
Last year the NYT wrote a hit piece on Scott Alexander and while it was cool that he defended himself, I think he and the rationalist community overreacted and looked bad.
I would like us to avoid this.
If someone writes a hit piece about the community, Givewell, Will MacAskill etc, how are we going to avoid a kneejerk reaction that makes everything worse?
I suggest if and when this happens:
individuals largely don’t respond publicly unless they are very confident they can do so in a way that leads to deescalation.
articles exist to get clicks. It’s worth someone (not necessarily me or you) responding to an article in the NYT, but if, say a niche commentator goes after someone, fewer people will hear it if we let it go.
let the comms professionals deal with it. All EA orgs and big players have comms professionals. They can defend themselves.
if we must respond (we often needn’t) we should adopt a stance of grace, curiosity and humility. Why do they think these things are true? What would convince us?
Personally I hate being attacked and am liable to feel defensive and respond badly. I assume you are no different. I’d like to think about this so that if and when it happens we can avoid embarrassing ourselves and the things we care about.
Yeah, I think the community response to the NYT piece was counterproductive, and I’ve also been dismayed at how much people in the community feel the need to respond to smaller hit pieces, effectively signal boosting them, instead of just ignoring them. I generally think people shouldn’t engage with public attacks unless they have training in comms (and even then, sometimes the best response is just ignoring).
How are we going to deal emotionally with the first big newspaper attack against EA?
EA is pretty powerful in terms of impact and funding.
It seems only an amount of time before there is a really nasty article written about the community or a key figure.
Last year the NYT wrote a hit piece on Scott Alexander and while it was cool that he defended himself, I think he and the rationalist community overreacted and looked bad.
I would like us to avoid this.
If someone writes a hit piece about the community, Givewell, Will MacAskill etc, how are we going to avoid a kneejerk reaction that makes everything worse?
I suggest if and when this happens:
individuals largely don’t respond publicly unless they are very confident they can do so in a way that leads to deescalation.
articles exist to get clicks. It’s worth someone (not necessarily me or you) responding to an article in the NYT, but if, say a niche commentator goes after someone, fewer people will hear it if we let it go.
let the comms professionals deal with it. All EA orgs and big players have comms professionals. They can defend themselves.
if we must respond (we often needn’t) we should adopt a stance of grace, curiosity and humility. Why do they think these things are true? What would convince us?
Personally I hate being attacked and am liable to feel defensive and respond badly. I assume you are no different. I’d like to think about this so that if and when it happens we can avoid embarrassing ourselves and the things we care about.
Yeah, I think the community response to the NYT piece was counterproductive, and I’ve also been dismayed at how much people in the community feel the need to respond to smaller hit pieces, effectively signal boosting them, instead of just ignoring them. I generally think people shouldn’t engage with public attacks unless they have training in comms (and even then, sometimes the best response is just ignoring).
We’ve had multiple big newspaper attacks now. How’d we do compared to your expectations?
I think we did better externally than I expected but I think internally I didn’t really write enough here.