I generally think we should almost always prioritize honesty where honesty and tact genuinely trade off against each other. That said, I suspect the cases where the trade-off is genuine (as opposed to people using tact as a bad justification for a lack of honesty, or honesty as a bad justification for a lack of tact) are not that common.
Do you disagree with this framing? For example, do you think that the core divide is something else?
I think that a divide exists, but I disagree that it pertains to recent events. Is it possible that you’re doing a typical mind fallacy thing where just because you don’t find something to be very objectionable, you’re assuming others probably don’t find it very objectionable and are only objecting for social signaling reasons? Are you underestimating the degree to which people genuinely agree with what you’d framing as the socially acceptable consensus views. rather than only agreeing with said socially acceptable consensus views due to social capital?
To be clear, I think there is always a degree to which some people are just doing things for social reasons, and that applies no less to recent events than it does to everywhere else. But I don’t think recent events are particularly more illustrative of these camps.
it appears to me, that those who prioritise AI Safety tend to fall into the first camp more often and those who prioritise global poverty tend to fall into the second camp.
I think this is false. If you look at every instance of an organization seemingly failing at full transparency for optics reasons, you won’t find much in the way of trend towards global health organizations.
On the other hand, if you look at more positive instances (people who advocate concern for branding, marketing, and PR with transparent and good intentions), you still don’t see any particular trend towards global health. (Some examples: [1]][2][3] just random stuff pulled out by doing a keyword search for words like “media”, “marketing” etc). Alternatively you could consider the cause area leanings of most”ea meta/outreach” type orgs in general, w.r.t. which cause area puts their energy where.
It’s possible that people who prioritize global poverty are more strongly opposed systematic injustices such as racism, in the same sense that people who prioritize animal welfare are more likely to be vegan. It does seem natural, doesn’t it, that the type of person who is sufficiently motivated by that to make a career out of it, might also be more strongly motivated to be against racism? But that, again, is not a case of “prioritizing social capital over epistemics”, any more than an animal activist’s veganism is mere virtue-signaling. It’s a case of genuine difference in worldviews.
Basically, I think you’ve only arrived at this conclusion that global health people are more concerned with social capital because you implicitly have the framing that being against the racist-sounding stuff specifically is a bid for social capital, while ignoring the big picture outside of that one specific area.
Also I think that if you think people are wrong about that stuff, and you’d like them to change their mind, you have to convince them of your viewpoint, rather than deciding that they only hold their viewpoint because they’re seeking social capital rather than holding it for honest reasons.
When I was talking about what AI safety people prioritise vs global health, I was thinking more at a grassroots level than at a professional level. I probably should have been clearer, and it seems plausible my model might even reverse at the professional level.
I generally think we should almost always prioritize honesty where honesty and tact genuinely trade off against each other. That said, I suspect the cases where the trade-off is genuine (as opposed to people using tact as a bad justification for a lack of honesty, or honesty as a bad justification for a lack of tact) are not that common.
I think that a divide exists, but I disagree that it pertains to recent events. Is it possible that you’re doing a typical mind fallacy thing where just because you don’t find something to be very objectionable, you’re assuming others probably don’t find it very objectionable and are only objecting for social signaling reasons? Are you underestimating the degree to which people genuinely agree with what you’d framing as the socially acceptable consensus views. rather than only agreeing with said socially acceptable consensus views due to social capital?
To be clear, I think there is always a degree to which some people are just doing things for social reasons, and that applies no less to recent events than it does to everywhere else. But I don’t think recent events are particularly more illustrative of these camps.
I think this is false. If you look at every instance of an organization seemingly failing at full transparency for optics reasons, you won’t find much in the way of trend towards global health organizations.
On the other hand, if you look at more positive instances (people who advocate concern for branding, marketing, and PR with transparent and good intentions), you still don’t see any particular trend towards global health. (Some examples: [1]][2][3] just random stuff pulled out by doing a keyword search for words like “media”, “marketing” etc). Alternatively you could consider the cause area leanings of most”ea meta/outreach” type orgs in general, w.r.t. which cause area puts their energy where.
It’s possible that people who prioritize global poverty are more strongly opposed systematic injustices such as racism, in the same sense that people who prioritize animal welfare are more likely to be vegan. It does seem natural, doesn’t it, that the type of person who is sufficiently motivated by that to make a career out of it, might also be more strongly motivated to be against racism? But that, again, is not a case of “prioritizing social capital over epistemics”, any more than an animal activist’s veganism is mere virtue-signaling. It’s a case of genuine difference in worldviews.
Basically, I think you’ve only arrived at this conclusion that global health people are more concerned with social capital because you implicitly have the framing that being against the racist-sounding stuff specifically is a bid for social capital, while ignoring the big picture outside of that one specific area.
Also I think that if you think people are wrong about that stuff, and you’d like them to change their mind, you have to convince them of your viewpoint, rather than deciding that they only hold their viewpoint because they’re seeking social capital rather than holding it for honest reasons.
When I was talking about what AI safety people prioritise vs global health, I was thinking more at a grassroots level than at a professional level. I probably should have been clearer, and it seems plausible my model might even reverse at the professional level.