Before popularizing a subtle idea like longtermism, there should be a red teaming process: thinking through how critics are likely to respond, and also how the meme might evolve when introduced to a broader audience. (Imagine the person you like least, then imagine them justifying their worst idea using longtermism. How to prevent this?)
To me, this sounds like PR, and I agree with Anna Salamon that PR is corrosive, reputation is not. I view myself here as defending longtermism’s reputation, or honor. When somebody who’s talking beyond their expertise besmirches the reputation of an idea, person, or group, then it’s right to push back directly against this behavior. Not to try and somehow avoid that outcome from occurring by modifying how you show up in public.
A few people can be paid to watch for longtermism discussion using Google Alerts etc. and offer polite corrections if bad arguments are made. Polite corrections probably won’t cause the person who made the bad argument to reverse their position, but they can be persuasive to onlookers. If no counterargument is made, some onlookers will assume that’s because no counterargument can be made, and some of those onlookers could be people who also have a big social media platform.
I’d be supportive of a well thought through experiment to try this out. I am not sure how one would approach this, or get feedback. My own few experiences of trying to politely respond to public figures making ill-founded criticisms is that they just ignore me. I expect this would be the result.
Remember that Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist. She went through and read papers. She is an extremely intelligent person. I am sure she’s smarter than me. I think it is far more likely that she understood the ideas and deliberately decided to distort them for her own political agenda, or maybe just for clicks, than that she misunderstood them. I really think that longtermism is an easier topic to grasp than Collider signatures in the Planck regime. If she can publish the latter, I think she can grasp the former.
To me, this sounds like PR, and I agree with Anna Salamon that PR is corrosive, reputation is not.
I think any effort to popularize longtermism is in some sense a PR effort. If you’re going to deliberately push a meme you should do it strategically. (Edit: To be clear, I’m not advocating for dishonesty.)
I think the “corrosiveness of PR” point applies more strongly to personal and organizational conduct than advocating for a new idea.
My own few experiences of trying to politely respond to public figures making ill-founded criticisms is that they just ignore me. I expect this would be the result.
Publicly admitting you’re incorrect is disincentivized. Probably if someone finds your counterpoint persuasive, they will not say so, in order to save face. In any case, onlookers seem more important—there are far more of them.
Also, if the counterpoint is published by a professional, they’ll have a bit more of a platform, so the likelihood of them getting ignored will be a bit lower. (Edit: Clarification—I’m advocating that you publish counterpoints specifically in places where people who saw the original are also likely to see the counterpoint. So e.g. if you have more Twitter followers, your reply to their tweet will be more visible.)
Remember that Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist. She went through and read papers. She is an extremely intelligent person. I am sure she’s smarter than me. I think it is far more likely that she understood the ideas and deliberately decided to distort them for her own political agenda, or maybe just for clicks, than that she misunderstood them. I really think that longtermism is an easier topic to grasp than Collider signatures in the Planck regime. If she can publish the latter, I think she can grasp the former.
I’m not referring to the difficulty of grasping it so much as the amount of time that was put in. Also, framing effects are important. Maybe Sabine just skimmed the paper to verify that the claims made in the media were correct. Maybe she doesn’t have much experience with moral philosophy discourse norms. (“You would kill baby Hitler? Stop advocating for infanticide!!”)
I’m not sure what you think her agenda is. If she was focused on advancing an agenda, such as attempting a “hit job”, would it make sense to include the bit at the end about how she really appreciates the longtermist focus on the prevention of existential risks so we have a long-term strategy for the next 10 billion years? My guess is she is not deliberately pushing an agenda, so much as fitting longtermism into an existing worldview without trying to steelman it (or, adopting a frame from a someone else who did this).
Publicly admitting you’re incorrect is disincentivized. Probably if someone finds your counterpoint persuasive, they will not say so, in order to save face. In any case, onlookers seem more important—there are far more of them.
Mostly, I’ve contacted authors via email. I never get responses. This doesn’t really surprise me, since they don’t know who I am, stand to gain nothing by replying, and they might worry I’d use any reply they gave me to disparage them in public. Point being, though, that it’s really not easy to foster dialog with a person who’s already taken the step of disparaging you, your ideas, or your community in public.
I’m not referring to the difficulty of grasping it so much as the amount of time that was put in. Also, framing effects are important. Maybe Sabine just skimmed the paper to verify that the claims made in the media were correct. Maybe she doesn’t have much experience with moral philosophy discourse norms. (“You would kill baby Hitler? Stop advocating for infanticide!!”)
I’m not sure what you think her agenda is. If she was focused on advancing an agenda, such as attempting a “hit job”, would it make sense to include the bit at the end about how she really appreciates the longtermist focus on the prevention of existential risks so we have a long-term strategy for the next 10 billion years? My guess is she is not deliberately pushing an agenda, so much as fitting longtermism into an existing worldview without trying to steelman it (or, adopting a frame from a someone else who did this).
Let’s taboo “hit job,” since it’s adding heat rather than light at least in this discussion between us. I do think that it makes sense to acknowledge the common-sense (actual longtermist) viewpoint at the end in the context of making a political attack on longtermism. Hossenfelder knows that her audience is sympathetic to the view that we should care for the long-term future. That makes it difficult to just outright dismiss longtermism the way mainstream political ideologies dismiss each other.
So she has to present an insane type of what we might call “no chips” longtermism, then argue against that, with the little caveat at the end. This is going to be just one of many examples to code longtermism as some sort of whacko right-wing hypernatalist escape from the burning wreckage of Earth to Mars for the rich 0.1% fantasy.
Having watched the video, I just frankly find it hard to believe that anybody would watch it and not see it as a clear politically motivated attack/smear attempt on longtermism.
It’s not so much a sense that you’re seeing the young woman and I’m seeing the old lady.
This isn’t meant to be disparaging, but it’s more a sense that I’m seeing the rabbit, while you’re simultaneously claiming you’re not colorblind but do not see the rabbit.
I’m truly confused both about how you can watch Hossenfelder’s video and not see it as a politically motivated attack, and also about how you imagine, in practical terms, that longtermism could have avoided becoming a target for such attacks.
I’m truly confused both about how you can watch Hossenfelder’s video and not see it as a politically motivated attack
Supposing it is a politically motivated attack, what do you think her motivation was? Why would she craftily seek to discredit longtermism in the way you describe? I think that’s the biggest missing piece for me.
(I also think it’s dangerous to mistake criticism for deliberate persecution.)
how you imagine, in practical terms, that longtermism could have avoided becoming a target for such attacks.
One of the most common ways to argue in moral philosophy is to make use of intuition pumps. For example: “Do you believe fighting global warming should be a top priority, even if it means less growth in developing countries and therefore more suffering in the near term? If so, how would you justify that?”
Can you say more about how you see intuition pumps as a potential way for longtermism to avoid political attacks? Seems to me we use them all the time.
I think EA and longtermism are both coming under attack now because they are a currently visible/trendy competitor in the moral marketplace of ideas. I don’t have a great explanation for why people do this, but it’s a traditional human hobby. It just seems like a typical case of attacking a perceived outgroup, either because they seem like a legitimate threat to one’s own influence or because you think your followers will enjoy the roast.
Can you say more about how you see intuition pumps as a potential way for longtermism to avoid political attacks? Seems to me we use them all the time.
The thought is to tailor the intuition pump for your audience, e.g. if your audience is left-wing, leverage moral intuitions they already have.
The thought is to tailor the intuition pump for your audience
I would expect this would make the problem worse, because these attacks come from people looking for stuff to quote, and if you are saying different things to different people they can quote the stuff you said in one context to people in another.
I guess I’m not sure when the point is that you transition from writing straightforward academic articles to writing politically-targeted articles. Hossenfelder said she skipped reading the more recent work (i.e. MacAskill’s “Doing Good Better”) in favor of looking at old papers published before longtermism/EA was in the news. So unless weird little nascent philosophical movements are couching their arguments in language appealing to every possible future political critic years before those critics will deign to even read the paper, it doesn’t seem like this strategy could have prevented Hossenfelder’s criticism.
To me, this sounds like PR, and I agree with Anna Salamon that PR is corrosive, reputation is not. I view myself here as defending longtermism’s reputation, or honor. When somebody who’s talking beyond their expertise besmirches the reputation of an idea, person, or group, then it’s right to push back directly against this behavior. Not to try and somehow avoid that outcome from occurring by modifying how you show up in public.
I’d be supportive of a well thought through experiment to try this out. I am not sure how one would approach this, or get feedback. My own few experiences of trying to politely respond to public figures making ill-founded criticisms is that they just ignore me. I expect this would be the result.
Remember that Sabine Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist. She went through and read papers. She is an extremely intelligent person. I am sure she’s smarter than me. I think it is far more likely that she understood the ideas and deliberately decided to distort them for her own political agenda, or maybe just for clicks, than that she misunderstood them. I really think that longtermism is an easier topic to grasp than Collider signatures in the Planck regime. If she can publish the latter, I think she can grasp the former.
I think any effort to popularize longtermism is in some sense a PR effort. If you’re going to deliberately push a meme you should do it strategically. (Edit: To be clear, I’m not advocating for dishonesty.)
I think the “corrosiveness of PR” point applies more strongly to personal and organizational conduct than advocating for a new idea.
Publicly admitting you’re incorrect is disincentivized. Probably if someone finds your counterpoint persuasive, they will not say so, in order to save face. In any case, onlookers seem more important—there are far more of them.
Also, if the counterpoint is published by a professional, they’ll have a bit more of a platform, so the likelihood of them getting ignored will be a bit lower. (Edit: Clarification—I’m advocating that you publish counterpoints specifically in places where people who saw the original are also likely to see the counterpoint. So e.g. if you have more Twitter followers, your reply to their tweet will be more visible.)
I’m not referring to the difficulty of grasping it so much as the amount of time that was put in. Also, framing effects are important. Maybe Sabine just skimmed the paper to verify that the claims made in the media were correct. Maybe she doesn’t have much experience with moral philosophy discourse norms. (“You would kill baby Hitler? Stop advocating for infanticide!!”)
I’m not sure what you think her agenda is. If she was focused on advancing an agenda, such as attempting a “hit job”, would it make sense to include the bit at the end about how she really appreciates the longtermist focus on the prevention of existential risks so we have a long-term strategy for the next 10 billion years? My guess is she is not deliberately pushing an agenda, so much as fitting longtermism into an existing worldview without trying to steelman it (or, adopting a frame from a someone else who did this).
Mostly, I’ve contacted authors via email. I never get responses. This doesn’t really surprise me, since they don’t know who I am, stand to gain nothing by replying, and they might worry I’d use any reply they gave me to disparage them in public. Point being, though, that it’s really not easy to foster dialog with a person who’s already taken the step of disparaging you, your ideas, or your community in public.
Let’s taboo “hit job,” since it’s adding heat rather than light at least in this discussion between us. I do think that it makes sense to acknowledge the common-sense (actual longtermist) viewpoint at the end in the context of making a political attack on longtermism. Hossenfelder knows that her audience is sympathetic to the view that we should care for the long-term future. That makes it difficult to just outright dismiss longtermism the way mainstream political ideologies dismiss each other.
So she has to present an insane type of what we might call “no chips” longtermism, then argue against that, with the little caveat at the end. This is going to be just one of many examples to code longtermism as some sort of whacko right-wing hypernatalist escape from the burning wreckage of Earth to Mars for the rich 0.1% fantasy.
Having watched the video, I just frankly find it hard to believe that anybody would watch it and not see it as a clear politically motivated attack/smear attempt on longtermism.
It’s not so much a sense that you’re seeing the young woman and I’m seeing the old lady.
This isn’t meant to be disparaging, but it’s more a sense that I’m seeing the rabbit, while you’re simultaneously claiming you’re not colorblind but do not see the rabbit.
I’m truly confused both about how you can watch Hossenfelder’s video and not see it as a politically motivated attack, and also about how you imagine, in practical terms, that longtermism could have avoided becoming a target for such attacks.
Supposing it is a politically motivated attack, what do you think her motivation was? Why would she craftily seek to discredit longtermism in the way you describe? I think that’s the biggest missing piece for me.
(I also think it’s dangerous to mistake criticism for deliberate persecution.)
One of the most common ways to argue in moral philosophy is to make use of intuition pumps. For example: “Do you believe fighting global warming should be a top priority, even if it means less growth in developing countries and therefore more suffering in the near term? If so, how would you justify that?”
Can you say more about how you see intuition pumps as a potential way for longtermism to avoid political attacks? Seems to me we use them all the time.
I think EA and longtermism are both coming under attack now because they are a currently visible/trendy competitor in the moral marketplace of ideas. I don’t have a great explanation for why people do this, but it’s a traditional human hobby. It just seems like a typical case of attacking a perceived outgroup, either because they seem like a legitimate threat to one’s own influence or because you think your followers will enjoy the roast.
The thought is to tailor the intuition pump for your audience, e.g. if your audience is left-wing, leverage moral intuitions they already have.
I would expect this would make the problem worse, because these attacks come from people looking for stuff to quote, and if you are saying different things to different people they can quote the stuff you said in one context to people in another.
I guess I’m not sure when the point is that you transition from writing straightforward academic articles to writing politically-targeted articles. Hossenfelder said she skipped reading the more recent work (i.e. MacAskill’s “Doing Good Better”) in favor of looking at old papers published before longtermism/EA was in the news. So unless weird little nascent philosophical movements are couching their arguments in language appealing to every possible future political critic years before those critics will deign to even read the paper, it doesn’t seem like this strategy could have prevented Hossenfelder’s criticism.