I think that some sort of general guide on “How to think about the issue of optics when so much of your philosophy/worldview is based on ignoring optics in the sake of epistemics/transparency (including embedded is-ought fallacies about how social systems ought to work), and your actions have externalities that affect the community” might be nice, if only so people don’t have to constantly reexplain/rehash this.
But generally, this is one of those things where it becomes apparent in hindsight that it would have been better to hash out these issues before the fire.
“But generally, this is one of those things where it becomes apparent in hindsight that it would have been better to hash out these issues before the fire”—Agreed. Times like this when people’s emotions are high are likely the most difficult time to make progress here.
you have the people[1] who want EA to prioritise epistemics on the basis that if we let this slip, we’ll eventually end up in a situation where our decisions will end up being what’s popular rather than what’s effective.
And relatedly, I think that such concerns about longterm epistemic damage are overblown. I appreciate that allowing epistemics to constantly be trampled in the name of optics is bad, but I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of what is happening. And I suspect that in the short term optics dominate due to how they are so driven by emotions and surface-level impressions, whereas epistemics seem typically driven more by reason over longer time spans and IMX are more the baseline in EA. So, there will be time to discuss what if anything “went wrong” with CEA’s response and other actions, and people should avoid accidentally fanning the flames in the name of preserving epistemics, which I doubt will burn.
(I’ll admit what I wrote may be wrong as written given that it was somewhat hasty and still a bit emotional, but I think I probably would agree with what I’m trying to say if I gave it deeper thought)
I think that some sort of general guide on “How to think about the issue of optics when so much of your philosophy/worldview is based on ignoring optics in the sake of epistemics/transparency (including embedded is-ought fallacies about how social systems ought to work), and your actions have externalities that affect the community” might be nice, if only so people don’t have to constantly reexplain/rehash this.
But generally, this is one of those things where it becomes apparent in hindsight that it would have been better to hash out these issues before the fire.
It’s too bad that Scout Mindset not only doesn’t seem to address this issue effectively, it also seems to push people more towards the is-ought fallacy of “optics shouldn’t matter that much” or “you can’t have good epistemics without full transparency/explicitness” (in my view: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HDAXztEbjJsyHLKP7/outline-of-galef-s-scout-mindset?commentId=7aQka7YXrhp6GjBCw)
“But generally, this is one of those things where it becomes apparent in hindsight that it would have been better to hash out these issues before the fire”—Agreed. Times like this when people’s emotions are high are likely the most difficult time to make progress here.
And relatedly, I think that such concerns about longterm epistemic damage are overblown. I appreciate that allowing epistemics to constantly be trampled in the name of optics is bad, but I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of what is happening. And I suspect that in the short term optics dominate due to how they are so driven by emotions and surface-level impressions, whereas epistemics seem typically driven more by reason over longer time spans and IMX are more the baseline in EA. So, there will be time to discuss what if anything “went wrong” with CEA’s response and other actions, and people should avoid accidentally fanning the flames in the name of preserving epistemics, which I doubt will burn.
(I’ll admit what I wrote may be wrong as written given that it was somewhat hasty and still a bit emotional, but I think I probably would agree with what I’m trying to say if I gave it deeper thought)