When I saw this comment, it was at “0”points. I’m surprised, because it seems like it is helpful and written in good faith. If someone down-voted it, could you explain why?
I don’t take, “[DGB] misrepresents sources structurally, and this is a convincing sign it is written in bad faith.” to be either:
True. The OP strikes me as tendentiously uncharitable and ‘out for blood’ (given the earlier versions was calling for Will to be disavowed by EA per Gleb Tsipursky, trust in Will down to 0, etc.), and the very worst that should be inferred, even if we grant all the matters under dispute in its favour—which we shouldn’t—would be something like “sloppy, and perhaps with a subconscious finger on the scale tilting the errors to be favourable to the thesis of the book” rather than deceit, malice, or other ‘bad faith’.
Helpful. False accusations of bad faith are obviously toxic. But even true ones should be made with care. I was one of the co-authors on the Intentional Insights document, and in that case (with much stronger evidence suggestive of ‘structural misrepresentation’ or ‘writing things in bad faith’) we refrained as far as practicable from making these adverse inferences. We were criticised for this at the time (perhaps rightly), but I think this is the better direction to err in.
Kind. Self explanatory.
I’m sure Siebe makes their comment in good faith, and I agree some parts of the comment are worthwhile (e.g. I agree it is important that folks in EA can be criticised). But not overall.
I agree with this take on the comment as it’s literally written. I think there’s a chance that Siebe meant ‘written in bad faith’ as something more like ‘written with less attention to detail than it could have been’, which seems like a very reasonable conclusion to come to.
(I just wanted to add a possibly more charitable interpretation, since otherwise the description of why the comment is unhelpful might seem a little harsh)
That seems like taking charitableness too far. I’m alright with finding different interpretations based on the words written, but ultimately, Siebe wrote what we wrote, and it cannot be intepreted as you suggest. It’s quite a big accusation, so caution is required when making it
Okay, points taken. I should have been much more careful given the strength of the accusation, and the accusation that DGB was written “in bad faith” seems (far) too strong.
I guess I have a tendency to support efforts that challenge common beliefs that might not be held for the right reasons (in this case “DGB is a rigourously written book, and a good introduction to effective altruism”). This seemed to outweigh the costs of criticism, likely because my intuition often underestimates the costs of criticism. However, the OP challenged a much stronger common belief (“Will MacAskill is not an untrustworthy person”) and I should have better distinguished those (both in my mind and in writing).
When I was writing it, I was very doubtful about whether I was phrasing it correctly, and I don’t think I succeeded. I think my intention for “written in bad faith” was meant less strongly, but a bit more than ‘written with less attention to detail than it could have been’: i.e. that less attention was given to details that wouldn’t pan out in favour of EA. More along the lines of this:
“sloppy, and perhaps with a subconscious finger on the scale tilting the errors to be favourable to the thesis of the book” rather than deceit, malice, or other ‘bad faith’.
I also have a lower credence in this now. I should add that my use of “convincing” was also too strong a term, as it might be interpreted as >95% credence, instead of the >60% credence I observed at the time of writing.
the essay posted to the Effective Altruism Forum never contained the bit about disavowing Will. I did write this in the version that I posted on my site, and I removed it, after much feedback elsewhere and wrote:
I updated this post significantly, based on feedback from the community. Several of my points were wrong and my tone and conclusions were sometimes inappropriate. I believe that my central point stands, but I apologize to William MacAskill for the first versions of the essay. For previous versions please see Web Archive.
As I wrote in a comment above responding to Will, prior to the publication of my essay I reached out to one of the employees of the CEA and asked them to review my draft. They first agreed, but after I sent the draft, they declined to review it.
When I saw this comment, it was at “0”points. I’m surprised, because it seems like it is helpful and written in good faith. If someone down-voted it, could you explain why?
Sure.
I don’t take, “[DGB] misrepresents sources structurally, and this is a convincing sign it is written in bad faith.” to be either:
True. The OP strikes me as tendentiously uncharitable and ‘out for blood’ (given the earlier versions was calling for Will to be disavowed by EA per Gleb Tsipursky, trust in Will down to 0, etc.), and the very worst that should be inferred, even if we grant all the matters under dispute in its favour—which we shouldn’t—would be something like “sloppy, and perhaps with a subconscious finger on the scale tilting the errors to be favourable to the thesis of the book” rather than deceit, malice, or other ‘bad faith’.
Helpful. False accusations of bad faith are obviously toxic. But even true ones should be made with care. I was one of the co-authors on the Intentional Insights document, and in that case (with much stronger evidence suggestive of ‘structural misrepresentation’ or ‘writing things in bad faith’) we refrained as far as practicable from making these adverse inferences. We were criticised for this at the time (perhaps rightly), but I think this is the better direction to err in.
Kind. Self explanatory.
I’m sure Siebe makes their comment in good faith, and I agree some parts of the comment are worthwhile (e.g. I agree it is important that folks in EA can be criticised). But not overall.
I agree with this take on the comment as it’s literally written. I think there’s a chance that Siebe meant ‘written in bad faith’ as something more like ‘written with less attention to detail than it could have been’, which seems like a very reasonable conclusion to come to.
(I just wanted to add a possibly more charitable interpretation, since otherwise the description of why the comment is unhelpful might seem a little harsh)
That seems like taking charitableness too far. I’m alright with finding different interpretations based on the words written, but ultimately, Siebe wrote what we wrote, and it cannot be intepreted as you suggest. It’s quite a big accusation, so caution is required when making it
Okay, points taken. I should have been much more careful given the strength of the accusation, and the accusation that DGB was written “in bad faith” seems (far) too strong.
I guess I have a tendency to support efforts that challenge common beliefs that might not be held for the right reasons (in this case “DGB is a rigourously written book, and a good introduction to effective altruism”). This seemed to outweigh the costs of criticism, likely because my intuition often underestimates the costs of criticism. However, the OP challenged a much stronger common belief (“Will MacAskill is not an untrustworthy person”) and I should have better distinguished those (both in my mind and in writing).
When I was writing it, I was very doubtful about whether I was phrasing it correctly, and I don’t think I succeeded. I think my intention for “written in bad faith” was meant less strongly, but a bit more than ‘written with less attention to detail than it could have been’: i.e. that less attention was given to details that wouldn’t pan out in favour of EA. More along the lines of this:
I also have a lower credence in this now. I should add that my use of “convincing” was also too strong a term, as it might be interpreted as >95% credence, instead of the >60% credence I observed at the time of writing.
Thanks!
Hi Gregory,
I should point out that
the essay posted to the Effective Altruism Forum never contained the bit about disavowing Will. I did write this in the version that I posted on my site, and I removed it, after much feedback elsewhere and wrote:
As I wrote in a comment above responding to Will, prior to the publication of my essay I reached out to one of the employees of the CEA and asked them to review my draft. They first agreed, but after I sent the draft, they declined to review it.