I appreciate what Rutger Bregman is trying to do, and his work has certainly had a big positive impact on the world, almost certainly larger than mine at least. But honestly, I think he could be more rigorous. I havenât looked into his âschool for moral ambitionâ project, but I have read (the first half) of his book âhumankindâ, and despite vehemently agreeing with the conclusion, I would never recommend it to anyone, especially not anyone who has done any research before.
There seems to be some sort of trade-off between wide reach and rigor. I noticed a similar thing with other EA public intellectuals, like for example with Sam Harris and his book âThe Moral Landscapeâ (I havenât read any of his other books, mostly because this one was just so riddled with sloppy errors), and Steven Pinkerâs âEnlightenment Nowâ (Havenât read any of his other books either, again because of errors in this book). (Also, Iâve seen some clips of them online, and while thatâs not the best way to get information about someone, they didnât raise my opinion of them, to say the least).
Pretty annoying overall. At least Bregman is not prominently displayed on the EA People page like they are (even though what I read of his book was comparatively better). I would delete them off of it, but last time I removed SBF and Musk from it, that edit got downvoted and I had to ask a friend to upvote it (and this was after SBF was detained, so I donât think a Harris or Pinker edit would fare much better). Pretty sad, because I think EA has much better people to display than a lot of individuals on that page. Especially considering some of them (like Harris and Pinker) currently donât even identify as EA.
Interesting, youâre clearly more familiar with Bregman than I am: I was thinking of it in terms of the social reinforcement in finding interesting cause areas and committing to them thing he appears to be trying to do rather than his philosophy.
Thereâs definitely a tradeoff between wide reach and rigour when writing for public audiences, but I think most people fall short of rigour most of the time. But those who claim exceptional rigour as their distinguishing characteristic should definitely try to avoid appearing to be more cliquey and arbitrary in their decision making than average...
When it comes to someone like Pinker itâs the tone that irritates me more than the generalizations, to the point Iâm even more annoyed when I think heâs right about something! If Bregman sometimes sounds similar I can see how it would grate.
I appreciate what Rutger Bregman is trying to do, and his work has certainly had a big positive impact on the world, almost certainly larger than mine at least. But honestly, I think he could be more rigorous. I havenât looked into his âschool for moral ambitionâ project, but I have read (the first half) of his book âhumankindâ, and despite vehemently agreeing with the conclusion, I would never recommend it to anyone, especially not anyone who has done any research before.
There seems to be some sort of trade-off between wide reach and rigor. I noticed a similar thing with other EA public intellectuals, like for example with Sam Harris and his book âThe Moral Landscapeâ (I havenât read any of his other books, mostly because this one was just so riddled with sloppy errors), and Steven Pinkerâs âEnlightenment Nowâ (Havenât read any of his other books either, again because of errors in this book). (Also, Iâve seen some clips of them online, and while thatâs not the best way to get information about someone, they didnât raise my opinion of them, to say the least).
Pretty annoying overall. At least Bregman is not prominently displayed on the EA People page like they are (even though what I read of his book was comparatively better). I would delete them off of it, but last time I removed SBF and Musk from it, that edit got downvoted and I had to ask a friend to upvote it (and this was after SBF was detained, so I donât think a Harris or Pinker edit would fare much better). Pretty sad, because I think EA has much better people to display than a lot of individuals on that page. Especially considering some of them (like Harris and Pinker) currently donât even identify as EA.
Interesting, youâre clearly more familiar with Bregman than I am: I was thinking of it in terms of the social reinforcement in finding interesting cause areas and committing to them thing he appears to be trying to do rather than his philosophy.
Thereâs definitely a tradeoff between wide reach and rigour when writing for public audiences, but I think most people fall short of rigour most of the time. But those who claim exceptional rigour as their distinguishing characteristic should definitely try to avoid appearing to be more cliquey and arbitrary in their decision making than average...
When it comes to someone like Pinker itâs the tone that irritates me more than the generalizations, to the point Iâm even more annoyed when I think heâs right about something! If Bregman sometimes sounds similar I can see how it would grate.