I really want to pull good insights out of this to improve the movement. However, the only thing I’m really getting is that we should think more about systemic change, which a) already seems to be the direction we’re moving in and b) doesn’t seem amenable to too much more focus than we are already liable to give it, i.e., we should devote some resources but not very much. My first reaction was that maybe Doing Good Better should have spent a little bit of time mentioning why this is difficult, but it’s a book, and really had to make sacrifices when choosing what to focus on, so I don’t think that’s even a possibe improvement. I think the best thing to come from this is your realization of potential coordination problems.
While I encourage well-thought-out criticism of the movement and different viewpoints for us to build off of, I can’t help but echo kbog’s sentiment that this seems a bit too continental to learn from. The feeling I get is that this is one of the many critiques I’ve encountered that find themselves vaguely uncomfortable with our notions and then paint a gestalt that can be slowly and assiduously associated with various negatives. There’s a lot of interplay between forest and trees here, but it’s really difficult to communicate when one is trying to work with concrete claims and another is trying to work with associations.
In summation, I think on most of these points (individualism, demandingness, systemic change, x-risk) we are pretty aware of the risky edges we walk along, and can’t really improve our safety margins much without violating our own tenets.
I think that might be fair. I was thinking more last night about what behaviour I’d actually change in light of this, and wasn’t thinking of many concrete actions. The main area would be to improve how we talk about cause selection so people don’t think we’re ignoring the issues she raises.
Actually I might take this back. The point about “EA hasn’t thought about how to solve coordination problems” (criticism (4) at the end) needs more thought put into it.
I really want to pull good insights out of this to improve the movement. However, the only thing I’m really getting is that we should think more about systemic change, which a) already seems to be the direction we’re moving in and b) doesn’t seem amenable to too much more focus than we are already liable to give it, i.e., we should devote some resources but not very much. My first reaction was that maybe Doing Good Better should have spent a little bit of time mentioning why this is difficult, but it’s a book, and really had to make sacrifices when choosing what to focus on, so I don’t think that’s even a possibe improvement. I think the best thing to come from this is your realization of potential coordination problems.
While I encourage well-thought-out criticism of the movement and different viewpoints for us to build off of, I can’t help but echo kbog’s sentiment that this seems a bit too continental to learn from. The feeling I get is that this is one of the many critiques I’ve encountered that find themselves vaguely uncomfortable with our notions and then paint a gestalt that can be slowly and assiduously associated with various negatives. There’s a lot of interplay between forest and trees here, but it’s really difficult to communicate when one is trying to work with concrete claims and another is trying to work with associations.
In summation, I think on most of these points (individualism, demandingness, systemic change, x-risk) we are pretty aware of the risky edges we walk along, and can’t really improve our safety margins much without violating our own tenets.
I think that might be fair. I was thinking more last night about what behaviour I’d actually change in light of this, and wasn’t thinking of many concrete actions. The main area would be to improve how we talk about cause selection so people don’t think we’re ignoring the issues she raises.
Actually I might take this back. The point about “EA hasn’t thought about how to solve coordination problems” (criticism (4) at the end) needs more thought put into it.