I didn’t downvote it, but it does come across as quite uncooperative/antagonistic toward other groups who are trying to do some good in this world, and I’m generally against that on the Forum.
Thanks for taking the time to try and explain. I’m really surprised at your description of my comment, however. In fact I’m so surprised that I wonder if my comment was badly misunderstood. Did people think that by saying “it might make Labour supporters seem more intellectual” that I was saying “Labour supporters are/seem stupid”? I didn’t mean that at all. I’ve voted Labour in the last two general elections.
Or was there something else in my comment that seemed antagonistic?
No, I don’t think it seemed anti-Labour. I just think anyone who’s not super committed to consequentialism is going to be uncomfortable with this:
“While it’s true that these vulnerabilities might eventually be closed, it might still be good to exploit them while they’re open.”
A lot of people who are involved in EA just don’t ever want to “exploit vulnerabilities” in well-meaning groups of people (which you suggested might be a good idea depending on the consequences)
For what it’s worth, I think it was pretty much a model EA Forum comment and am disappointed that people downvoted it so strongly. It seemed to be doing the difficult and valuable thing of “trying to work out what is actually the best thing to do” and met all the default commenting guidelines. It also didn’t come across to me as at all antagonistic.
I didn’t downvote it, but it does come across as quite uncooperative/antagonistic toward other groups who are trying to do some good in this world, and I’m generally against that on the Forum.
Thanks for taking the time to try and explain. I’m really surprised at your description of my comment, however. In fact I’m so surprised that I wonder if my comment was badly misunderstood. Did people think that by saying “it might make Labour supporters seem more intellectual” that I was saying “Labour supporters are/seem stupid”? I didn’t mean that at all. I’ve voted Labour in the last two general elections.
Or was there something else in my comment that seemed antagonistic?
No, I don’t think it seemed anti-Labour. I just think anyone who’s not super committed to consequentialism is going to be uncomfortable with this:
“While it’s true that these vulnerabilities might eventually be closed, it might still be good to exploit them while they’re open.”
A lot of people who are involved in EA just don’t ever want to “exploit vulnerabilities” in well-meaning groups of people (which you suggested might be a good idea depending on the consequences)
For what it’s worth, I think it was pretty much a model EA Forum comment and am disappointed that people downvoted it so strongly. It seemed to be doing the difficult and valuable thing of “trying to work out what is actually the best thing to do” and met all the default commenting guidelines. It also didn’t come across to me as at all antagonistic.