In particular, after watching Lizka’s forum talk and talking with Aaron Gertler:
Are my comments providing energy to the discussion or removing energy from it
Are my attempts to find truth actually unearthing truth or causing exhaustion?
Criticism vs. it will never be enough
Some personal errors/complexites
How do I encourage more energy into the discussion not sap it
I have some ADHD tendencies—I have a short attention span and little trust that I will do tasks I start. If I don’t comment now, I probably won’t. I think this led to lots of very low effort comments. I think is fine (good?) on twitter but I’m less sure about it on the forum. Since then I’ve tried to write things that create more potential for discussion.
Truth vs Exhaustion
I don’t want to get into the object level here, but around the Owen Cotton-Barrett stuff I wrote a load of little poll comments to try and allow people a way to express their views without having to put their own heads above the parapet. Some people liked these, others did not.
Those that liked them appreciated a much cheaper way to express their veiws.
Those that didn’t like them felt the polls were unrepresentative and so gave a false picture.
This is a hard problem. I was really trying to improve the discourse. Maybe I failed. I’d like to note how hard it is. How there isn’t necessarily an easy answer here.
How can we be enough?
My therapist says I take too much responsibility for things and that I shouldn’t aim for limitless self improvement. I am less certain—I do reasonable amounts of harm accidentally, to partners, friends and colleagues. I want to get better.
I’m an ex-Christian, and in Evangelicalism, there is the notion of “the now and not yet”, how things are in tension between how they are and what they could be. I am valuable, but I want to be better.
Likewise the forum straddles this line, where we both want to be open to criticism without tearing our most conscientious members down. I don’t know the answer here either. I was reading the post about Redwood Research the other day and while I think criticism is good I mused on how it must feel to read. I sense the folks at Redwood work really hard, and my general sense is that external criticisms are ill-founded (though still provide information on net), so probably it’s pretty frustrating to feel like your community doesn’t value your work.
I don’t think that’s true by the way, but I think it’s how it can feel. Like we are all just waiting for one another to step out of line and then publish a useful but searing critique.
I have heard this from a number of core EAs—that they hate posting on the forum. That they are scared of what we’ll say in the comments. This doesn’t make me feel good.
How do we do criticism in a way that shows we are really grateful for the work of those involved?
Reflections on my own actions
There are a few things that I play over in my head in regard to this forum/community being too self critical.
The scandal markets. I have a half written retrospective somewhere, but suffice it to say that after FTX crisis I decided that I knew the best way to deal with monitoring personal morality and it was to create a load of fake money prediction markets on whether key figures in the movement would be convicted of fraud. I deleted them pretty quickly. I think finding out that people are betting on if you do crime is probably a central case of the kind of tearing down that I think exhausts us. I guess it left some people feeling like we really did not have their back. While there is more to say, I’m sorry I just didn’t wait a while and find consensus. I have written about loyalty, and I still don’t know what we owe our leaders. But I really hope there is a way that doesn’t leave people feeling like this (though sadly I don’t think we can just trust our leaders to be good)
The poll posts. I really strongly think it matters what we all think about things and that representative polls are great. I think the forum comments can be pretty oppressive around a scandal and people can be scared to talk. And I’m open to the idea the poll posts were good on net, but again it just feels like they caused more harm than they needed to. I feel pretty sad about that
Some comments. I once commented on Will’s accent in a post. I wasn’t really thinking and it seemed like an interesting point, but I think it was an error. Sorry Will. I think that I forgot he’s a person, not a number on a spreadsheet to be optimised. And I guess he didn’t ask for my opinion on his accent. I think the line here is blurry, but there is a kind of comment that moves from discussion of an org, to discussion of an individual, and without a relationship behind it, those can feel pretty brutal. Again, I think that sometimes these things are warranted, but I think we are probably too free with them and it makes the forum a worse place to exist.
Endnote
I am really grateful to be part of this community. Genuinely. I am so moved by the work that people do to try and make the world better. I’m moved by those who are giving a bit and trying to do it effectively and I’m moved by my friend who will not have taken a singly day of holiday until some time in the middle of the year, because they think that’s the right thing to do. And I don’t think we can just “be kinder”—because kindness sometimes trades off against truth. But it’s a thing I really want. I really want to figure out the way we can both correct our flaws, challenge one another and feel protected and safe.
I am a big believer that problems are solvable but that don’t something isn’t necessarily better than doing nothing. I don’t know what the solution is here, but I think we have a problem.
I’ve thought about this quite a lot
In particular, after watching Lizka’s forum talk and talking with Aaron Gertler:
Are my comments providing energy to the discussion or removing energy from it
Are my attempts to find truth actually unearthing truth or causing exhaustion?
Criticism vs. it will never be enough
Some personal errors/complexites
How do I encourage more energy into the discussion not sap it
I have some ADHD tendencies—I have a short attention span and little trust that I will do tasks I start. If I don’t comment now, I probably won’t. I think this led to lots of very low effort comments. I think is fine (good?) on twitter but I’m less sure about it on the forum. Since then I’ve tried to write things that create more potential for discussion.
Truth vs Exhaustion
I don’t want to get into the object level here, but around the Owen Cotton-Barrett stuff I wrote a load of little poll comments to try and allow people a way to express their views without having to put their own heads above the parapet. Some people liked these, others did not.
Those that liked them appreciated a much cheaper way to express their veiws.
Those that didn’t like them felt the polls were unrepresentative and so gave a false picture.
This is a hard problem. I was really trying to improve the discourse. Maybe I failed. I’d like to note how hard it is. How there isn’t necessarily an easy answer here.
How can we be enough?
My therapist says I take too much responsibility for things and that I shouldn’t aim for limitless self improvement. I am less certain—I do reasonable amounts of harm accidentally, to partners, friends and colleagues. I want to get better.
I’m an ex-Christian, and in Evangelicalism, there is the notion of “the now and not yet”, how things are in tension between how they are and what they could be. I am valuable, but I want to be better.
Likewise the forum straddles this line, where we both want to be open to criticism without tearing our most conscientious members down. I don’t know the answer here either. I was reading the post about Redwood Research the other day and while I think criticism is good I mused on how it must feel to read. I sense the folks at Redwood work really hard, and my general sense is that external criticisms are ill-founded (though still provide information on net), so probably it’s pretty frustrating to feel like your community doesn’t value your work.
I don’t think that’s true by the way, but I think it’s how it can feel. Like we are all just waiting for one another to step out of line and then publish a useful but searing critique.
I have heard this from a number of core EAs—that they hate posting on the forum. That they are scared of what we’ll say in the comments. This doesn’t make me feel good.
How do we do criticism in a way that shows we are really grateful for the work of those involved?
Reflections on my own actions
There are a few things that I play over in my head in regard to this forum/community being too self critical.
The scandal markets. I have a half written retrospective somewhere, but suffice it to say that after FTX crisis I decided that I knew the best way to deal with monitoring personal morality and it was to create a load of fake money prediction markets on whether key figures in the movement would be convicted of fraud. I deleted them pretty quickly. I think finding out that people are betting on if you do crime is probably a central case of the kind of tearing down that I think exhausts us. I guess it left some people feeling like we really did not have their back. While there is more to say, I’m sorry I just didn’t wait a while and find consensus. I have written about loyalty, and I still don’t know what we owe our leaders. But I really hope there is a way that doesn’t leave people feeling like this (though sadly I don’t think we can just trust our leaders to be good)
The poll posts. I really strongly think it matters what we all think about things and that representative polls are great. I think the forum comments can be pretty oppressive around a scandal and people can be scared to talk. And I’m open to the idea the poll posts were good on net, but again it just feels like they caused more harm than they needed to. I feel pretty sad about that
Some comments. I once commented on Will’s accent in a post. I wasn’t really thinking and it seemed like an interesting point, but I think it was an error. Sorry Will. I think that I forgot he’s a person, not a number on a spreadsheet to be optimised. And I guess he didn’t ask for my opinion on his accent. I think the line here is blurry, but there is a kind of comment that moves from discussion of an org, to discussion of an individual, and without a relationship behind it, those can feel pretty brutal. Again, I think that sometimes these things are warranted, but I think we are probably too free with them and it makes the forum a worse place to exist.
Endnote
I am really grateful to be part of this community. Genuinely. I am so moved by the work that people do to try and make the world better. I’m moved by those who are giving a bit and trying to do it effectively and I’m moved by my friend who will not have taken a singly day of holiday until some time in the middle of the year, because they think that’s the right thing to do. And I don’t think we can just “be kinder”—because kindness sometimes trades off against truth. But it’s a thing I really want. I really want to figure out the way we can both correct our flaws, challenge one another and feel protected and safe.
I am a big believer that problems are solvable but that don’t something isn’t necessarily better than doing nothing. I don’t know what the solution is here, but I think we have a problem.