This is a post from an organization trying to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.
...
If the Qualia Research Institute was a truth seeking institution, they would have either run the simple experiment I proposed themselves, or had any of the neuroscientists they claim to be collaborating with run it for them.
This reads to me as insinuating fraud, without much supporting evidence.
This is a bad post and it should be called out as such. I would have been more gentle if this was a single misguided researcher and not the head of an organization that publishes a lot of other nonsense too.
I appreciate that in other comments you followed up with more concrete criticisms, but this still feels against the “Keep EA Weird” spirit to me. If we never spend a million or two on something that turns out to be nonsense, we wouldn’t have applied hits-based giving very well.
(Despite the username, I have no affiliation with QRI. I’ll admit to finding the problem worth working on. )
Hi all, I messaged some with Holly a bit about this, and what she shared was very helpful. I think a core part of what happened was a mismatch of expectations: I originally wrote this content for my blog and QRI’s website, and the tone and terminology was geared toward “home team content”, not “away team content”. Some people found both the confidence and somewhat dense terminology offputting, and I think that’s reasonable of them to raise questions. As a takeaway, I‘ve updated that crossposting involves some pitfalls and intend to do things differently next time.
Thanks valence. I do think the ‘hits-based giving’ frame is important to develop, although I understand it’s doesn’t have universal support as some of the implications may be difficult to navigate.
And thank for appreciating the problem; it’s sometimes hard for me to describe how important the topic feels and all the reasons for working on it.
This reads to me as insinuating fraud, without much supporting evidence.
I appreciate that in other comments you followed up with more concrete criticisms, but this still feels against the “Keep EA Weird” spirit to me. If we never spend a million or two on something that turns out to be nonsense, we wouldn’t have applied hits-based giving very well.
(Despite the username, I have no affiliation with QRI. I’ll admit to finding the problem worth working on. )
Keeping EA honest and rigorous is much higher priority. Making excuses for incompetence or lack of evidence base is the opposite of EA.
I agree that honesty is more important than weirdness. Maybe I’m being taken, but I see miscommunication and not dishonesty from QRI.
I am not sure what an appropriate standard of rigor is for a preparadigmatic area. I would welcome more qualifiers and softer claims.
At the very least, miscommunication this bad is evidence of serious incompetence at QRI. I think you are mistaken to want to excuse that.
Hi all, I messaged some with Holly a bit about this, and what she shared was very helpful. I think a core part of what happened was a mismatch of expectations: I originally wrote this content for my blog and QRI’s website, and the tone and terminology was geared toward “home team content”, not “away team content”. Some people found both the confidence and somewhat dense terminology offputting, and I think that’s reasonable of them to raise questions. As a takeaway, I‘ve updated that crossposting involves some pitfalls and intend to do things differently next time.
Thanks valence. I do think the ‘hits-based giving’ frame is important to develop, although I understand it’s doesn’t have universal support as some of the implications may be difficult to navigate.
And thank for appreciating the problem; it’s sometimes hard for me to describe how important the topic feels and all the reasons for working on it.