I’m against downvoting this article into the negative.
I think it is worthwhile hearing someone’s quick takes even when they don’t have time to write a full response. Even if the article contains some misunderstandings (not claiming it does one way or the other), it still helps move the conversation forward by clarifying where the debate is at.
...it still helps move the conversation forward by clarifying where the debate is at.
Anything Nate writes would do that, because he’s one of the debaters, right? He could have written “It’s a stupid post and I’m not going to read it”, literally just that one sentence, and it would still tell us something surprising about the debate. In some ways that post would be better than the one we got: it’s shorter, and much clearer about how much work he put in. But I would still downvote it, and I imagine you would too. Even allowing for the value of the debate itself, the bar is higher than that.
For me, that bar is at least as high as “read the whole article before replying to it”. If you don’t have time to read an article that’s totally fine, but then you don’t have time to post about it either.
I felt-sense-disagree. (I haven’t yet downvoted the article, but I strongly considered it). I’ll try to explore why I feel that way.
One reason probably is that I treat posts as having a different claim than other forms of publishing on this forum (and LessWrong)—they (implicitly) make a claim that they’re finished & polished content. When I open a post I expect a person to have done some work that tries to uphold standards of scholarship and care, which this post doesn’t show. I’d’ve been far less disappointed if this were a comment or a shortform post.
The other part is probably paying attention to status and the standards that are put upon people with high status: I expect high status people to not put much effort into whatever they produce as they can coast on status, which seems like the thing that’s happening here. (Although one could argue that the MIRI fraction is losing status/already low-ish status and this consideration doesn’t apply here).
Additionally, I was disappointed that the text didn’t say anything that I wouldn’t have expected, which probably fed into my felt-sense of wanting to downvote. I’m not sure I reflectively endorse this feeling.
I’m against downvoting this article into the negative.
I think it is worthwhile hearing someone’s quick takes even when they don’t have time to write a full response. Even if the article contains some misunderstandings (not claiming it does one way or the other), it still helps move the conversation forward by clarifying where the debate is at.
Anything Nate writes would do that, because he’s one of the debaters, right? He could have written “It’s a stupid post and I’m not going to read it”, literally just that one sentence, and it would still tell us something surprising about the debate. In some ways that post would be better than the one we got: it’s shorter, and much clearer about how much work he put in. But I would still downvote it, and I imagine you would too. Even allowing for the value of the debate itself, the bar is higher than that.
For me, that bar is at least as high as “read the whole article before replying to it”. If you don’t have time to read an article that’s totally fine, but then you don’t have time to post about it either.
I felt-sense-disagree. (I haven’t yet downvoted the article, but I strongly considered it). I’ll try to explore why I feel that way.
One reason probably is that I treat posts as having a different claim than other forms of publishing on this forum (and LessWrong)—they (implicitly) make a claim that they’re finished & polished content. When I open a post I expect a person to have done some work that tries to uphold standards of scholarship and care, which this post doesn’t show. I’d’ve been far less disappointed if this were a comment or a shortform post.
The other part is probably paying attention to status and the standards that are put upon people with high status: I expect high status people to not put much effort into whatever they produce as they can coast on status, which seems like the thing that’s happening here. (Although one could argue that the MIRI fraction is losing status/already low-ish status and this consideration doesn’t apply here).
Additionally, I was disappointed that the text didn’t say anything that I wouldn’t have expected, which probably fed into my felt-sense of wanting to downvote. I’m not sure I reflectively endorse this feeling.