Great comment! Coming from a background of more mainstream altruistic circles, I’ve found appearing confident and avoiding hedging is an important aspect of leadership and inspiring others to join me in my goals.
I think one resolution for this trade-off is to adjust based on the subject matter. When making certain basic claims (e.g. the importance of the far future, giving a public speech about effective altruism), we might want to err on the side of confidence, but when making more tenuous claims (e.g. regarding the effectiveness of Against Malaria Foundation versus the effectiveness of GiveDirectly), we might want to err on the side of hedging.
Another resolution is to try to come off as both confident and hedging. This is easier in person when we can communicate confidence with our tone and body language, but hedge with our language. It seems difficult to pull off online.
I’d be interested in hearing other ways to best handle this tradeoff.
Great comment! Coming from a background of more mainstream altruistic circles, I’ve found appearing confident and avoiding hedging is an important aspect of leadership and inspiring others to join me in my goals.
I think one resolution for this trade-off is to adjust based on the subject matter. When making certain basic claims (e.g. the importance of the far future, giving a public speech about effective altruism), we might want to err on the side of confidence, but when making more tenuous claims (e.g. regarding the effectiveness of Against Malaria Foundation versus the effectiveness of GiveDirectly), we might want to err on the side of hedging.
Another resolution is to try to come off as both confident and hedging. This is easier in person when we can communicate confidence with our tone and body language, but hedge with our language. It seems difficult to pull off online.
I’d be interested in hearing other ways to best handle this tradeoff.