I consider this a good outcome—I would prefer an EA Forum without your critical writing on it, because I think your critical writing has similar problems to this post (for similar reasons to the comment Rohin made here), and I think that posts like this/yours are fairly unhelpful, distracting, and unpleasant. In my opinion, it is fair game for me to make truthful comments that cause people to feel less incentivized to write posts like this one (or yours) in future (though I can imagine changing my mind on this).
This was a disappointing comment to read from a well-respected researcher, and negatively updates me against encouraging people to working and collaborating with you in the future, because I think it reflects a callousness as well as insensitivity towards power dynamics which I would not want to see in a manager or someone running an AI alignment organization. In my opinion, it is fair game for me to make truthful comments that cause you to feel less incentivized to write comments like this in future (though I can imagine changing my mind on this).
I do not actually endorse this comment above. It is used as an illustration of why a true statement alone might not mean it is “fair game”, or a constructive way to approach what you want to say. Here is my real response:
In terms of whether it is “fair game” or not: consider some junior EA who made a comment to you, “I would prefer an EA forum without your critical writing on it”. This has basically zero implications for you. No one is going to take them seriously, unless they provide receipts and point out what they disliked. But this isn’t the case in reverse. So I think if you are someone seen to be a “powerful EA”, or someone whose opinion is taken pretty seriously, you should take significant care when making statements like this, because some people might update simply based on your views. I haven’t engaged with much of weeatquince’s work, but EA is a sufficiently small enough community that these kinds of opinions can probably a harmful impact on someone’s involvement in EA-I don’t think the disclaimers around “I no longer do grantmaking for the EAIF” are particularly reassuring on this front. For example, I imagine if Holden came and made a comment in response to someone “I find your posts unhelpful, distracting, and unpleasant. I would prefer an EA forum without your critical writing on it”, this could lead to information cascades and reputational repercussions that don’t accurately reflect weeatquince’s actual quality of work. You are not Holden, but it would be reasonable for you to expect your opinions to have sway in the EA community.
FWIW, your comment will negatively update people towards posting under their main accounts, and I think a forum environment where people feel even more inclined to make alt accounts because they are worried about reputational repercussions from someone like you coming along with a comment like “I would prefer an EA Forum without your critical writing on it” is intimidating and not ideal for community engagement. Because you haven’t provided any justification for your claim aside from Robin’s post which points at strawmanning to some extent, I don’t know what this means for my work and whether my comments will pass your bar. Why not just let other users downvote low quality comments, and if you have a particular quality bar for posts that you think the downvotes don’t capture, just filter your frontpage so you only see posts with >50 or >100 karma? If you disagree with the way people running the forum are using the karma system, or their idea for who should post and what the signal:noise ratio should be, you should take that to the EA forum folks. Because if I was a new EA member, I’d be deleting my draft posts after reading a comment like this, and find it disconcerting that I’m being encouraged to post by the mods but might bump into senior EA members who say this about my good-faith contributions.
I do not actually endorse this comment above. It is used as an illustration of why a true statement alone might not mean it is “fair game”, or a constructive way to approach what you want to say. Here is my real response:
As a random aside, I thought that your first paragraph was totally fair and reasonable and I had no problem with you saying it.
Thanks for your comment. I think your comment seems to me like it’s equivocating between two things: whether I negatively judge people for writing certain things, and whether I publicly say that I think certain content makes the EA Forum worse. In particular, I did the latter, but you’re worrying about the former.
I do update on people when they say things on this forum that I think indicate bad things about their judgment or integrity, as I think I should, but for what it’s worth I am very quick to forgive and don’t hold long grudges. Also, it’s quite rare for me to update against someone substantially from a single piece of writing of theirs that I disliked. In general, I think people in EA worry too much about being judged negatively for saying things and underestimate how forgiving people are (especially if a year passes or if you say particularly reasonable things in the meantime).
@Buck – As a hopefully constructive point I think you could have written a comment that served the same function but was less potentially off-putting by clearly separating your critique between a general critique of critical writing on the EA Forum and critiques of specific people (me or the OP author).
I do update on people when they say things on this forum that I think indicate bad things about their judgment or integrity, as I think I should
I agree! But given this, I think the two things you mention often feel highly correlated, and it’s hard for people to actually know that when you make a statement like that, that there’s no negative judgement either from you, nor from other readers of your statement. It also feels a bit weird to suggest there’s no negative judgement if you also think the forum is a better place without their critical writing?
In general, I think people in EA worry too much about being judged negatively for saying things and underestimate how forgiving people are
I also agree with this, which is why I wanted to push back on your comment, because I think it would be understandable for someone to read your comment and worry more about being judged negatively, and if you think people are poorly calibrated, you should err on the side of giving people reasons to update in the right direction, instead of potentially exacerbating the misconception.
I also agree with this, which is why I wanted to push back on your comment, because I think it would be understandable for someone to read your comment and worry more about being judged negatively, and if you think people are poorly calibrated, you should err on the side of giving people reasons to update in the right direction, instead of potentially exacerbating the misconception.
I think you and Buck are saying different things:
you are saying “people in EA should worry less about being judged negatively, because they won’t be judged negatively”,
Buck is saying “people in EA should worry less about being judged negatively, because it’s not so bad to be judged negatively”.
I think these points have opposite implications about whether to post judgemental comments, and about what impact a judgemental comment should have on you.
Oh interesting-I hadn’t noticed that interpretation, thanks for pointing it out. That being said I do think it’s much easier for someone in a more established senior position, who isn’t particularly at risk of bad outcomes from negative judgements, to suggest that negative judgements are not so bad or use that as a justification for making negative judgements.
This was a disappointing comment to read from a well-respected researcher, and negatively updates me against encouraging people to working and collaborating with you in the future, because I think it reflects a callousness as well as insensitivity towards power dynamics which I would not want to see in a manager or someone running an AI alignment organization. In my opinion, it is fair game for me to make truthful comments that cause you to feel less incentivized to write comments like this in future (though I can imagine changing my mind on this).
I do not actually endorse this comment above. It is used as an illustration of why a true statement alone might not mean it is “fair game”, or a constructive way to approach what you want to say. Here is my real response:
In terms of whether it is “fair game” or not: consider some junior EA who made a comment to you, “I would prefer an EA forum without your critical writing on it”. This has basically zero implications for you. No one is going to take them seriously, unless they provide receipts and point out what they disliked. But this isn’t the case in reverse. So I think if you are someone seen to be a “powerful EA”, or someone whose opinion is taken pretty seriously, you should take significant care when making statements like this, because some people might update simply based on your views. I haven’t engaged with much of weeatquince’s work, but EA is a sufficiently small enough community that these kinds of opinions can probably a harmful impact on someone’s involvement in EA-I don’t think the disclaimers around “I no longer do grantmaking for the EAIF” are particularly reassuring on this front. For example, I imagine if Holden came and made a comment in response to someone “I find your posts unhelpful, distracting, and unpleasant. I would prefer an EA forum without your critical writing on it”, this could lead to information cascades and reputational repercussions that don’t accurately reflect weeatquince’s actual quality of work. You are not Holden, but it would be reasonable for you to expect your opinions to have sway in the EA community.
FWIW, your comment will negatively update people towards posting under their main accounts, and I think a forum environment where people feel even more inclined to make alt accounts because they are worried about reputational repercussions from someone like you coming along with a comment like “I would prefer an EA Forum without your critical writing on it” is intimidating and not ideal for community engagement. Because you haven’t provided any justification for your claim aside from Robin’s post which points at strawmanning to some extent, I don’t know what this means for my work and whether my comments will pass your bar. Why not just let other users downvote low quality comments, and if you have a particular quality bar for posts that you think the downvotes don’t capture, just filter your frontpage so you only see posts with >50 or >100 karma? If you disagree with the way people running the forum are using the karma system, or their idea for who should post and what the signal:noise ratio should be, you should take that to the EA forum folks. Because if I was a new EA member, I’d be deleting my draft posts after reading a comment like this, and find it disconcerting that I’m being encouraged to post by the mods but might bump into senior EA members who say this about my good-faith contributions.
As a random aside, I thought that your first paragraph was totally fair and reasonable and I had no problem with you saying it.
Thanks for your comment. I think your comment seems to me like it’s equivocating between two things: whether I negatively judge people for writing certain things, and whether I publicly say that I think certain content makes the EA Forum worse. In particular, I did the latter, but you’re worrying about the former.
I do update on people when they say things on this forum that I think indicate bad things about their judgment or integrity, as I think I should, but for what it’s worth I am very quick to forgive and don’t hold long grudges. Also, it’s quite rare for me to update against someone substantially from a single piece of writing of theirs that I disliked. In general, I think people in EA worry too much about being judged negatively for saying things and underestimate how forgiving people are (especially if a year passes or if you say particularly reasonable things in the meantime).
@Buck – As a hopefully constructive point I think you could have written a comment that served the same function but was less potentially off-putting by clearly separating your critique between a general critique of critical writing on the EA Forum and critiques of specific people (me or the OP author).
I agree! But given this, I think the two things you mention often feel highly correlated, and it’s hard for people to actually know that when you make a statement like that, that there’s no negative judgement either from you, nor from other readers of your statement. It also feels a bit weird to suggest there’s no negative judgement if you also think the forum is a better place without their critical writing?
I also agree with this, which is why I wanted to push back on your comment, because I think it would be understandable for someone to read your comment and worry more about being judged negatively, and if you think people are poorly calibrated, you should err on the side of giving people reasons to update in the right direction, instead of potentially exacerbating the misconception.
I think you and Buck are saying different things:
you are saying “people in EA should worry less about being judged negatively, because they won’t be judged negatively”,
Buck is saying “people in EA should worry less about being judged negatively, because it’s not so bad to be judged negatively”.
I think these points have opposite implications about whether to post judgemental comments, and about what impact a judgemental comment should have on you.
Oh interesting-I hadn’t noticed that interpretation, thanks for pointing it out. That being said I do think it’s much easier for someone in a more established senior position, who isn’t particularly at risk of bad outcomes from negative judgements, to suggest that negative judgements are not so bad or use that as a justification for making negative judgements.