[ This comment is addressing Agrippa and not related to my other comments/beliefs about leftist activism ]
This reply is generous and thoughtful of you.
I do not think this, for lack of actual content. What would it mean for me to change my view on any topic or argument you have advanced?
X is not particularly specified in the comments of Charles, so I have no idea whether or not Charles could actually accurately describe the difference between my views and the average forum poster
Yes, you are exactly right in your thoughts here.
The truth is that I didn’t mean to write about you, Sapphire or DXE at all. As you noticed, there is in fact, limited or no object level issues related to you in my comment chain.
This is deliberate. I guess the reason why I picked you to start this chain, was for this reason. As you say:
[My behavior] does not rest on any leftist principles or heuristics and does not even seem controversial among experienced EAs
As mentioned I was/am in these circles (whatever that means). I don’t really have the heart to attack the work and object level issues to someone who is a true believer in most leftist causes, because I think that could have a chance of really hurting them.
For you, that’s not a concern, because I’m not even talking about the issues you care about. I also think your issues have different emotional character and are more abstract (30M of funding to a defecting AI safety org).
Another motivation of mine that is more (less?) principled is that I believe you and Sapphire are picking an unreasonable fight with Michael St Jules, in this comment chain.
I think he was talking about specialization (“This would be like the opposite of the donor lottery, which exists to incentivize fewer deeper independent investigations over more shallow investigations”) and I thought you ignored this reasonable explanation, to try to pin down some excessive deference or favoring concentration of power (and his beliefs about the specific funders you and Sapphire may not understand well as this is cause area dependent).
Your choice of him to press seems misguided, as he has has no direct involvement or strong opinions on AI safety object level issues that I think you care about. I also believe he is a “moderate” who doesn’t want concentration of thought or power.
This made me annoyed (it does sort of resemble some kinds of leftist activism) and I sort of trolled you with patterns I thought ”rhymes” with what you did.
Finally, and very directly, actual incidents of real activism are extremely obvious here, and you must admit involve similar patterns of accusations of centralization, censorship, and dismissal from an out of touch, self interested central authority on causes no one cares about.
This is just bad writing on my part. I meant “here” to mean, in EA or in EA discussion, and not referring to your behavior, strategy or comments.
>At the object level, X seems to be “giving DXE as an example of people who include credible moral optimizers that don’t align with EA”. If X includes other posts by me, perhaps it includes “claiming that CEA has not done a good job at community building or disbursing funds” (which does not rest on any leftist principles or heuristics and does not even seem controversial among experienced EAs), and “whining that EA has ended up collaborating with, instead of opposing, the AI capabilities work” (which also does not rest on anything I would consider even vaguely leftist coded).
This is really thoughtful, self aware and genuinely impressive. This is generous to think about and gives me too much credit.
I don’t agree with your analysis of the comment chain.
(and his beliefs about the specific funders you and Sapphire may not understand well as this is cause area dependent).
Your choice of him to press seems misguided, as he has has no direct involvement or strong opinions on AI safety object level issues that I think you care about.
These assertions / assumptions aren’t true. He didn’t limit his commentary (which was a reply / rebuttal to Sapphire) to animal welfare. If he had, it would still be irrelevant that he’s done so, given that animal welfare is Sapphire’s dominant cause area. In fact, his response (corrected by Sapphire) re: Rethink was misleading! So I’m not sure how this reading is supported.
I thought you ignored this reasonable explanation
I am also not really sure how this reading is supported.
Tangentially: As a matter of fact I think that EA has been quite negative for animal welfare because in large part CEA is a group of longtermists co-opting efforts to organize effective animal welfare and then neglecting it. I am a longtermist too but I think that the growth potential for effective animal welfare is much higher and should not be bottlenecked by a longtermist movement. I engage animal welfare as a cause area about equally as much as longtermism, excluding donations.
As mentioned I was/am in these circles (whatever that means). I don’t really have the heart to attack the work and object level issues to someone who is a true believer in most leftist causes, because I think that could have a chance of really hurting them.
There is really not a shortage of unspecific commentary about leftism (or any other ideological classification) on LW, EAF, Twitter, etcetera. Other people seem to like it a lot more than me. Discussion that I find valuable is overwhelmingly specific, clear, object-level. Heuristics are fine but should be clearly relevant and strong. Etcetera. Not doing so is responsible for a ton of noise, and the noise is even noisier if it’s in a reply setting and superficially resembles conversation.
[ This comment is addressing Agrippa and not related to my other comments/beliefs about leftist activism ]
This reply is generous and thoughtful of you.
Yes, you are exactly right in your thoughts here.
The truth is that I didn’t mean to write about you, Sapphire or DXE at all. As you noticed, there is in fact, limited or no object level issues related to you in my comment chain.
This is deliberate. I guess the reason why I picked you to start this chain, was for this reason. As you say:
As mentioned I was/am in these circles (whatever that means). I don’t really have the heart to attack the work and object level issues to someone who is a true believer in most leftist causes, because I think that could have a chance of really hurting them.
For you, that’s not a concern, because I’m not even talking about the issues you care about. I also think your issues have different emotional character and are more abstract (30M of funding to a defecting AI safety org).
Another motivation of mine that is more (less?) principled is that I believe you and Sapphire are picking an unreasonable fight with Michael St Jules, in this comment chain.
I think he was talking about specialization (“This would be like the opposite of the donor lottery, which exists to incentivize fewer deeper independent investigations over more shallow investigations”) and I thought you ignored this reasonable explanation, to try to pin down some excessive deference or favoring concentration of power (and his beliefs about the specific funders you and Sapphire may not understand well as this is cause area dependent).
Your choice of him to press seems misguided, as he has has no direct involvement or strong opinions on AI safety object level issues that I think you care about. I also believe he is a “moderate” who doesn’t want concentration of thought or power.
This made me annoyed (it does sort of resemble some kinds of leftist activism) and I sort of trolled you with patterns I thought ”rhymes” with what you did.
This is just bad writing on my part. I meant “here” to mean, in EA or in EA discussion, and not referring to your behavior, strategy or comments.
>At the object level, X seems to be “giving DXE as an example of people who include credible moral optimizers that don’t align with EA”. If X includes other posts by me, perhaps it includes “claiming that CEA has not done a good job at community building or disbursing funds” (which does not rest on any leftist principles or heuristics and does not even seem controversial among experienced EAs), and “whining that EA has ended up collaborating with, instead of opposing, the AI capabilities work” (which also does not rest on anything I would consider even vaguely leftist coded).
This is really thoughtful, self aware and genuinely impressive. This is generous to think about and gives me too much credit.
I appreciate the praise! Very cool.
I don’t agree with your analysis of the comment chain.
These assertions / assumptions aren’t true. He didn’t limit his commentary (which was a reply / rebuttal to Sapphire) to animal welfare. If he had, it would still be irrelevant that he’s done so, given that animal welfare is Sapphire’s dominant cause area. In fact, his response (corrected by Sapphire) re: Rethink was misleading! So I’m not sure how this reading is supported.
I am also not really sure how this reading is supported.
Tangentially: As a matter of fact I think that EA has been quite negative for animal welfare because in large part CEA is a group of longtermists co-opting efforts to organize effective animal welfare and then neglecting it. I am a longtermist too but I think that the growth potential for effective animal welfare is much higher and should not be bottlenecked by a longtermist movement. I engage animal welfare as a cause area about equally as much as longtermism, excluding donations.
There is really not a shortage of unspecific commentary about leftism (or any other ideological classification) on LW, EAF, Twitter, etcetera. Other people seem to like it a lot more than me. Discussion that I find valuable is overwhelmingly specific, clear, object-level. Heuristics are fine but should be clearly relevant and strong. Etcetera. Not doing so is responsible for a ton of noise, and the noise is even noisier if it’s in a reply setting and superficially resembles conversation.