I have to be honest that I’m disappointed in this message. I’m not so much disappointed that you wrote a message along these lines, but in the adoption of perfect PR speak when communicating with the community. I would prefer a much more authentic message that reads like it was written by an actual human (not the PR speak formula) even if that risks subjecting the EA movement to additional criticism and I suspect that this will also be more impactful long term. It is much more important to maintain trust with your community than to worry about what outsiders think, especially since many of our critics will be opposed to us no matter what we do.
I don’t understand the importance of CEA saying anything to the community about this particular matter. We can all read Bostrom’s statement and draw our own conclusions; CEA has—to my knowledge—no special knowledge about or insight into this situation. The “PR speak” seems designed to ensure that each potentially quotable sentence includes a clear rejection of the racist language in question.
I would be fine if CEA hadn’t put out a message at all, but this sets a bad precedent. Robotic PR messages has never been the kind of relationship that CEA has had with the community up until now.
I think Jason’s point is more that CEA’s statement isn’t really an attempt to ‘communicate with the EA community’, so your criticisms don’t apply in this case. E.g. this statement could be something for EAs to link to when talking about it with people looking in, who are trying to make an informed judgement (i.e. busy, neutral people lacking information, not committed critics).
I don’t see the value in CEA not posting its press statements to the forum. That just means that people have to regularly check another website if they want to see if a statement has been issued. On the other hand, if you do not want to engage with press statements, it only takes two seconds to read the post title and decide not to engage with content you think is inappropriate for the forum. Given the historical frequency of such comments, that’s. . . thirty seconds a year?
We are not the target audience here. If the PR-speak is interferring with something CEA needs to say to the community, that’s one thing. But if there’s no need for a community message at all I don’t see how the PR-speak message is interfering with community communication.
Because PR messages are so standardised they effectively just follow a formula. They aren’t authentic at all and it raises the question of to what extent other messages are representative of CEA’s true beliefs.
I have to be honest that I’m disappointed in this message. I’m not so much disappointed that you wrote a message along these lines, but in the adoption of perfect PR speak when communicating with the community. I would prefer a much more authentic message that reads like it was written by an actual human (not the PR speak formula) even if that risks subjecting the EA movement to additional criticism and I suspect that this will also be more impactful long term. It is much more important to maintain trust with your community than to worry about what outsiders think, especially since many of our critics will be opposed to us no matter what we do.
I don’t understand the importance of CEA saying anything to the community about this particular matter. We can all read Bostrom’s statement and draw our own conclusions; CEA has—to my knowledge—no special knowledge about or insight into this situation. The “PR speak” seems designed to ensure that each potentially quotable sentence includes a clear rejection of the racist language in question.
I would be fine if CEA hadn’t put out a message at all, but this sets a bad precedent. Robotic PR messages has never been the kind of relationship that CEA has had with the community up until now.
I think Jason’s point is more that CEA’s statement isn’t really an attempt to ‘communicate with the EA community’, so your criticisms don’t apply in this case. E.g. this statement could be something for EAs to link to when talking about it with people looking in, who are trying to make an informed judgement (i.e. busy, neutral people lacking information, not committed critics).
If the message was written for outsiders, then I would encourage them not to post it on the EA forum.
I don’t see the value in CEA not posting its press statements to the forum. That just means that people have to regularly check another website if they want to see if a statement has been issued. On the other hand, if you do not want to engage with press statements, it only takes two seconds to read the post title and decide not to engage with content you think is inappropriate for the forum. Given the historical frequency of such comments, that’s. . . thirty seconds a year?
The forum seems as good a place as any?
We are not the target audience here. If the PR-speak is interferring with something CEA needs to say to the community, that’s one thing. But if there’s no need for a community message at all I don’t see how the PR-speak message is interfering with community communication.
In what way do you feel like CEA’s statement is counterproductive to maintaining trust?
Because PR messages are so standardised they effectively just follow a formula. They aren’t authentic at all and it raises the question of to what extent other messages are representative of CEA’s true beliefs.