I consider my recent critical post to be a deep criticism (it criticises an aspect of EA culture that is emotional/intimate and it could impact the relative statuses of people within EA including prominent figures) and I wrote it under pseudonym, so I’ll add my personal perspective. I don’t think this post captures why I wrote my post under pseudonym and I don’t think decentralising EA would have caused me to post it under my real name.
I’m also not sure exactly what message we should take from many people using pseudonyms. Here are some possibilities:
People are rightly worried about retaliation
People are wrongly worried about retaliation
The community is unusually open to criticism and will seriously consider criticisms made even under pseudonym, so people feel more comfortable using pseudonyms for various other reasons including personal ones
Other possibilities I haven’t thought of
There’s probably a combination but I don’t know how we could determine how much is of each. On a positive note I think most other communities would simply disregard deep criticisms made under pseudonym or would try to dox the authors of such pieces, which is not something I worry about here.
my recent critical post [Consider not sleeping around within the community]
This doesn’t really seem like a criticism of EA to me, more of a community health suggestion. I think when ConcernedEAs are saying we’re not receptive to deep critiques, they’re claiming we’re willing to listen to people suggesting we spend 1% less on bednets and 1% more on vitamin supplements, but not people suggesting we should switch from working on AI alignment to ending wealth inequality.
I consider my recent critical post to be a deep criticism (it criticises an aspect of EA culture that is emotional/intimate and it could impact the relative statuses of people within EA including prominent figures) and I wrote it under pseudonym, so I’ll add my personal perspective. I don’t think this post captures why I wrote my post under pseudonym and I don’t think decentralising EA would have caused me to post it under my real name.
I’m also not sure exactly what message we should take from many people using pseudonyms. Here are some possibilities:
People are rightly worried about retaliation
People are wrongly worried about retaliation
The community is unusually open to criticism and will seriously consider criticisms made even under pseudonym, so people feel more comfortable using pseudonyms for various other reasons including personal ones
Other possibilities I haven’t thought of
There’s probably a combination but I don’t know how we could determine how much is of each. On a positive note I think most other communities would simply disregard deep criticisms made under pseudonym or would try to dox the authors of such pieces, which is not something I worry about here.
This doesn’t really seem like a criticism of EA to me, more of a community health suggestion. I think when ConcernedEAs are saying we’re not receptive to deep critiques, they’re claiming we’re willing to listen to people suggesting we spend 1% less on bednets and 1% more on vitamin supplements, but not people suggesting we should switch from working on AI alignment to ending wealth inequality.