Without wanting to play this entire post out in miniature, you’re telling me something I think probably isn’t true and then suggesting I read an entire book. I doubt I’m gonna do that.
You generally read books to understand a thesis in more detail. If there would be a few examples of notable organizations that used democratic decision-making to great effect and someone would want to learn from that, reading a book that gives more details is a great idea. Reading a book to see whether or not a thesis deserves more attention on the other hand makes less sense.
Just a small point here—quite a few of the links/citations in this post are to academic texts which are very expensive [1] (or cumulatively expensive, if you want to read more than a couple) unless you have access through a university/institution. While blogposts/google docs may have less rigour and review than academic papers, their comparative advantage is the speed with which they can be produced and iterated on.
If anything, developing some of the critiques above in more accessible blogposts would probably give more ‘social proof’ that EA views are more heterodox than it might seem at first (David Thorstad’s blog is a great example you link in this post). Though I do accept that current community culture may mean many people are, sadly but understandably, reluctant to do so openly.
This is just my impression after a quick first read, and could be unrepresentative. I definitely intend to read this post again in a lot more detail, and thanks again for the effort that you put into this.
Hi Nathan,
If you’re interested in the performance of democratic decision-making methods then the Democratic Reason book is probably the best place to start!
Without wanting to play this entire post out in miniature, you’re telling me something I think probably isn’t true and then suggesting I read an entire book. I doubt I’m gonna do that.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/54vAiSFkYszTWWWv4/doing-ea-better-1#We_should_probably_read_more_widely
You generally read books to understand a thesis in more detail. If there would be a few examples of notable organizations that used democratic decision-making to great effect and someone would want to learn from that, reading a book that gives more details is a great idea. Reading a book to see whether or not a thesis deserves more attention on the other hand makes less sense.
Just a small point here—quite a few of the links/citations in this post are to academic texts which are very expensive [1] (or cumulatively expensive, if you want to read more than a couple) unless you have access through a university/institution. While blogposts/google docs may have less rigour and review than academic papers, their comparative advantage is the speed with which they can be produced and iterated on.
If anything, developing some of the critiques above in more accessible blogposts would probably give more ‘social proof’ that EA views are more heterodox than it might seem at first (David Thorstad’s blog is a great example you link in this post). Though I do accept that current community culture may mean many people are, sadly but understandably, reluctant to do so openly.
This is just my impression after a quick first read, and could be unrepresentative. I definitely intend to read this post again in a lot more detail, and thanks again for the effort that you put into this.