Things like getting funding, being highly upvoted on the forum, being on podcasts, being high status and being EA-branded are fuzzy and often poor proxies for trustworthiness and of relevant people’s views on the people, projects and organizations in question.
To flesh this out a bit: I run an EA-adjacent podcast (the AI X-risk Research Podcast, tell your friends). I decide to have people on if, based on a potentially-shallow understanding of their work, I think it would be good if people understood their ideas better. Ways this can be true:
I think the guest is right about some important things.
The guest is prominent or influential, meaning that fleshing out their ideas and the justifications thereof might change various people’s minds.
There’s also gating for whether or not the guest is too busy or doesn’t want to be on a podcast.
At any rate, it doesn’t mean that I think the guest is right about the important things.
To flesh this out a bit: I run an EA-adjacent podcast (the AI X-risk Research Podcast, tell your friends). I decide to have people on if, based on a potentially-shallow understanding of their work, I think it would be good if people understood their ideas better. Ways this can be true:
I think the guest is right about some important things.
The guest is prominent or influential, meaning that fleshing out their ideas and the justifications thereof might change various people’s minds.
There’s also gating for whether or not the guest is too busy or doesn’t want to be on a podcast.
At any rate, it doesn’t mean that I think the guest is right about the important things.