My intuition is that the priority for funding criticism of EA/longtermism is low, because there will be a lot of smart and motivated people who (in my opinion, because of previously held ideological commitments; but the true reason doesn’t matter for the purpose of my argument) will formulate and publicize criticisms of EA/longtermism, regardless of what we do.
I’m not sure about this. People outside EA who have a good criticisms might just decide it’s not worth writing up at length—they should just ignore EA and get on with their preferred projects. People inside EA might worry about making themselves unpopular (‘getting cancelled’) and conclude it’s not worth the risk.
I disagree somewhat; if we directly fund critiques, it might be easier to make sure a large portion of the community actually sees them. If we post a critique to the EA Forum under the heading “winners of the EA criticism contest,” it’ll gain more traction with EAs than if the author just posted it on their personal blog. EA-funded critiques would also be targeted more towards persuading people who already believe in the idea, which may make them better.
While critiques will probably be published anyway, increasing the number of critiques seems good; there may be many people who have insights into problems in EA but wouldn’t have published them due to lack of motivation or an unargumentative nature.
Holding such a contest may also convey useful signaling to people in and outside the EA community and hopefully promote a genuine culture of open-mindedness.
My intuition is that the priority for funding criticism of EA/longtermism is low, because there will be a lot of smart and motivated people who (in my opinion, because of previously held ideological commitments; but the true reason doesn’t matter for the purpose of my argument) will formulate and publicize criticisms of EA/longtermism, regardless of what we do.
I’m not sure about this. People outside EA who have a good criticisms might just decide it’s not worth writing up at length—they should just ignore EA and get on with their preferred projects. People inside EA might worry about making themselves unpopular (‘getting cancelled’) and conclude it’s not worth the risk.
I disagree somewhat; if we directly fund critiques, it might be easier to make sure a large portion of the community actually sees them. If we post a critique to the EA Forum under the heading “winners of the EA criticism contest,” it’ll gain more traction with EAs than if the author just posted it on their personal blog. EA-funded critiques would also be targeted more towards persuading people who already believe in the idea, which may make them better.
While critiques will probably be published anyway, increasing the number of critiques seems good; there may be many people who have insights into problems in EA but wouldn’t have published them due to lack of motivation or an unargumentative nature.
Holding such a contest may also convey useful signaling to people in and outside the EA community and hopefully promote a genuine culture of open-mindedness.