Placing a bounty for writing criticisms casts doubt on whether those criticisms are actually sincere, or whether they’re just bs-ing and overstating certain things and omitting other considerations to write those most compelling criticism they can. It’s like reading a study written by someone with a conflict of interest – it’s very easy to dismiss it out of hand. If CEA were to offer a financial incentive for critiques, then all critiques of CEA become less trustworthy. I think it would be more productive to encourage people to offer the most thoughtful suggestions on how to improve, even if that means scaling up certain things because they were successful, and not criticism per se.
Thanks for the feedback, these are points worth considering.
bs-ing and overstating certain things and omitting other considerations to write those most compelling criticism they can
Hm, my thought was that CEA would be the ones choosing the winners, and presumably CEA’s definition of a “compelling” criticism could be based on how insightful or accurate CEA perceives the criticism to be rather than how negative it is.
It’s like reading a study written by someone with a conflict of interest – it’s very easy to dismiss it out of hand.
An alternative analogy is making sure that someone accused of a crime gets a defense lawyer. We want people who are paid to tell both sides of the story.
In any case, the point is not whether we should overall be pro/con CEA. The point is what CEA should do to improve. People could have conflicts of interest regarding specific changes they’d like to see CEA make, but the contest prize seems a bit orthogonal to those conflicts, and indeed could surface suggestions that are valuable precisely because no one currently has an incentive to make them.
If CEA were to offer a financial incentive for critiques, then all critiques of CEA become less trustworthy.
I don’t see how critiques which aren’t offered in the context of the contest would be affected.
I think it would be more productive to encourage people to offer the most thoughtful suggestions on how to improve, even if that means scaling up certain things because they were successful, and not criticism per se.
Maybe you’re right and this is a better scheme. I guess part of my thinking was that there are social incentives which discourage criticism, and cash could counteract those, and additionally people who are pessimistic about your organization could have some of the most valuable feedback to offer, but because they’re pessimistic they will by default focus on other things and might only be motivated by a cash incentive. But I don’t know.
Placing a bounty for writing criticisms casts doubt on whether those criticisms are actually sincere, or whether they’re just bs-ing and overstating certain things and omitting other considerations to write those most compelling criticism they can. It’s like reading a study written by someone with a conflict of interest – it’s very easy to dismiss it out of hand. If CEA were to offer a financial incentive for critiques, then all critiques of CEA become less trustworthy. I think it would be more productive to encourage people to offer the most thoughtful suggestions on how to improve, even if that means scaling up certain things because they were successful, and not criticism per se.
Thanks for the feedback, these are points worth considering.
Hm, my thought was that CEA would be the ones choosing the winners, and presumably CEA’s definition of a “compelling” criticism could be based on how insightful or accurate CEA perceives the criticism to be rather than how negative it is.
An alternative analogy is making sure that someone accused of a crime gets a defense lawyer. We want people who are paid to tell both sides of the story.
In any case, the point is not whether we should overall be pro/con CEA. The point is what CEA should do to improve. People could have conflicts of interest regarding specific changes they’d like to see CEA make, but the contest prize seems a bit orthogonal to those conflicts, and indeed could surface suggestions that are valuable precisely because no one currently has an incentive to make them.
I don’t see how critiques which aren’t offered in the context of the contest would be affected.
Maybe you’re right and this is a better scheme. I guess part of my thinking was that there are social incentives which discourage criticism, and cash could counteract those, and additionally people who are pessimistic about your organization could have some of the most valuable feedback to offer, but because they’re pessimistic they will by default focus on other things and might only be motivated by a cash incentive. But I don’t know.