I think “lack of modesty” may often be shorthand for other limitations that stifle discussion, or make readers think the author is not open to input from others.
E.g., if an author writes something like “my research proves that all charity is driven by selfish motives”.
Definitely lack of actual humility is a problem, but I think pretty much everyone recognises that it’s a problem. Even the people who actually do lack humility to the extent that they think no one can teach them anything—do recognise that humility is good epistemics in general… for other people. So I don’t think going around and reminding everyone that they need to be humble actually helps much. It’s already in the water. Especially in EA.
I think “lack of modesty” may often be shorthand for other limitations that stifle discussion, or make readers think the author is not open to input from others.
E.g., if an author writes something like “my research proves that all charity is driven by selfish motives”.
Definitely lack of actual humility is a problem, but I think pretty much everyone recognises that it’s a problem. Even the people who actually do lack humility to the extent that they think no one can teach them anything—do recognise that humility is good epistemics in general… for other people. So I don’t think going around and reminding everyone that they need to be humble actually helps much. It’s already in the water. Especially in EA.
Generally yes but there are always new people coming in who are not aware of this.
So, the ‘when to remind’ game is a challenge of finding the right balance of precision and recall (type 1⁄2 errors) and hitting the best frontier.