Wow again I just haven’t moved in circles where this would even be considered. Only the most elite 0.1 percent of people can even have a meaningful “public private disconnect” as you have to have quite a prominent public profile for that to even be an issue. Although we all have a “public profile” in theory, very few people are famous/powerful enough for it to count.
I don’t think I believe in a public/private disconnect but I’ll think about it some more. I believe in integrity and honesty in most situations, especially when your are publicly disparaging a movement. If you have chosen to lie and smear a movement with”My impression is that it’s a bit of an outdated term” then I think this makes what you say a bit more fair game than for other statements where you aren’t low-key attacking a group of well meaning people.
Only the most elite 0.1 percent of people can even have a meaningful “public private disconnect” as you have to have quite a prominent public profile for that to even be an issue.
Hmm yeah, that’s kinda my point? Like complaining about your annoying coworker anonymously online is fine, but making a public blog post like “my coworker Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” would be weird, people get fired for stuff like that. And referencing their wedding website would be even more extreme.
(Of course, most people’s coworkers aren’t trying to reshape the lightcone without public consent so idk, maybe different standards should apply here. I can tell you that a non-trivial number of people I’ve wanted to hire for leadership positions in EA have declined for reasons like “I don’t want people critiquing my personal life on the EA Forum” though.)
No one is critiquing Daniela’s personal life though, they’re critiquing something about her public life (ie her voluntary public statements to journalists) for contradicting what she’s said in her personal life. Compare this with a common reason people get cancelled where the critique is that there’s something bad in their personal life, and people are disappointed that the personal life doesn’t reflect the public persona- in this case it’s the other way around.
most people’s coworkers aren’t trying to reshape the lightcone without public consent so idk, maybe different standards should apply here
Exactly. Daniela and the senior leadership at one of the frontier AI labs are not the same as someone’s random office colleague. There’s a clear public interest angle here in terms of understanding the political and social affiliations of powerful and influential people—which is simply absent in the case you describe.
That’s interesting and I’m sad to hear about people declining jobs due those reasons. On the other hand though some leadership jobs might not be the right job fit if they’re not up for that kind of critique. I would imagine though there are a bunch of ways to avoid the “EA limelight” for many positions though, of course not public facing ones.
Slight quibble though I would consider “Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” an order of magnitude more objectionable than quoting a wedding website to make a point. Maybe wedding website are sacrosanct in a way in missing tho...
the other hand though some leadership jobs might not be the right job fit if they’re not up for that kind of critique
Yeah, this used to be my take but a few iterations of trying to hire for jobs which exclude shy awkward nerds from consideration when the EA candidate pool consists almost entirely of shy awkward nerds has made the cost of this approach quite salient to me.
Agree with Ben that this makes it harder to find folks for leadership positions.
In addition to excluding shy awkward nerds, you’re also actively selecting for a bunch of personality traits, not all of which are unalloyed positives.
By analogy, I think there’s a very strong argument that very high levels of scrutiny are fair game for politicians but I’m not particularly thrilled with what that does to our candidate pool.
(I don’t know of a great way to resolve this tension.)
Wow again I just haven’t moved in circles where this would even be considered. Only the most elite 0.1 percent of people can even have a meaningful “public private disconnect” as you have to have quite a prominent public profile for that to even be an issue. Although we all have a “public profile” in theory, very few people are famous/powerful enough for it to count.
I don’t think I believe in a public/private disconnect but I’ll think about it some more. I believe in integrity and honesty in most situations, especially when your are publicly disparaging a movement. If you have chosen to lie and smear a movement with”My impression is that it’s a bit of an outdated term” then I think this makes what you say a bit more fair game than for other statements where you aren’t low-key attacking a group of well meaning people.
Hmm yeah, that’s kinda my point? Like complaining about your annoying coworker anonymously online is fine, but making a public blog post like “my coworker Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” would be weird, people get fired for stuff like that. And referencing their wedding website would be even more extreme.
(Of course, most people’s coworkers aren’t trying to reshape the lightcone without public consent so idk, maybe different standards should apply here. I can tell you that a non-trivial number of people I’ve wanted to hire for leadership positions in EA have declined for reasons like “I don’t want people critiquing my personal life on the EA Forum” though.)
No one is critiquing Daniela’s personal life though, they’re critiquing something about her public life (ie her voluntary public statements to journalists) for contradicting what she’s said in her personal life. Compare this with a common reason people get cancelled where the critique is that there’s something bad in their personal life, and people are disappointed that the personal life doesn’t reflect the public persona- in this case it’s the other way around.
Exactly. Daniela and the senior leadership at one of the frontier AI labs are not the same as someone’s random office colleague. There’s a clear public interest angle here in terms of understanding the political and social affiliations of powerful and influential people—which is simply absent in the case you describe.
That’s interesting and I’m sad to hear about people declining jobs due those reasons. On the other hand though some leadership jobs might not be the right job fit if they’re not up for that kind of critique. I would imagine though there are a bunch of ways to avoid the “EA limelight” for many positions though, of course not public facing ones.
Slight quibble though I would consider “Jane Doe sucks for these reasons” an order of magnitude more objectionable than quoting a wedding website to make a point. Maybe wedding website are sacrosanct in a way in missing tho...
Yeah, this used to be my take but a few iterations of trying to hire for jobs which exclude shy awkward nerds from consideration when the EA candidate pool consists almost entirely of shy awkward nerds has made the cost of this approach quite salient to me.
There are trade-offs to everything 🤷♂️
Agree with Ben that this makes it harder to find folks for leadership positions.
In addition to excluding shy awkward nerds, you’re also actively selecting for a bunch of personality traits, not all of which are unalloyed positives.
By analogy, I think there’s a very strong argument that very high levels of scrutiny are fair game for politicians but I’m not particularly thrilled with what that does to our candidate pool.
(I don’t know of a great way to resolve this tension.)
100 percent man