Iâm not quite as convinced of the much greater cost of âbad criticismâ over âgood criticismâ. Iâm optimistic that discussions on the forum tend to come to a reflective equilibrium that agrees with valid criticism and disregards invalid criticism. Iâll give some examples (but pre-committing to not rehashing these too much):
I think HLI is a good example of long-discussion-that-ends-up-agreeing-with-valid-criticism, and as discussed by other people in this thread this probably led to capital + mind share being allocated more efficiently.
I think the recent back and forth between VettedCauses and Sinergia is a good example of the other side. Setting aside the remaining points of contention, I think commenters on the original post did a good job of clocking the fact that there was room for the reported flaws to have a harmless explanation. And then Carolina from Sinergia did a good job of providing a concrete explanation of most of the supposed issues[1].
Itâs possible that HLI and Sinergia came away equally discouraged, but if so I think that would be a misapprehension on Sinergiaâs part. Personally I went from having no preconceptions about them to having mildly positive sentiment towards them.
Perhaps we could do some work to promote the meme that âreasonably-successfully defending yourself against criticism is generally good for your reputation not badâ.
(Stopped writing here to post something rather than nothing, I may respond to some other points later)
You could also argue that not everyone has time to read through the details of these discussions, and so people go away with a negative impression. I donât think thatâs right because on a quick skim you can sort of pick up the sentiment of the comment section, and most things like this donât escape the confines of the forum.
Iâm not quite as convinced of the much greater cost of âbad criticismâ over âgood criticismâ. Iâm optimistic that discussions on the forum tend to come to a reflective equilibrium that agrees with valid criticism and disregards invalid criticism. Iâll give some examples (but pre-committing to not rehashing these too much):
I think HLI is a good example of long-discussion-that-ends-up-agreeing-with-valid-criticism, and as discussed by other people in this thread this probably led to capital + mind share being allocated more efficiently.
I think the recent back and forth between VettedCauses and Sinergia is a good example of the other side. Setting aside the remaining points of contention, I think commenters on the original post did a good job of clocking the fact that there was room for the reported flaws to have a harmless explanation. And then Carolina from Sinergia did a good job of providing a concrete explanation of most of the supposed issues[1].
Itâs possible that HLI and Sinergia came away equally discouraged, but if so I think that would be a misapprehension on Sinergiaâs part. Personally I went from having no preconceptions about them to having mildly positive sentiment towards them.
Perhaps we could do some work to promote the meme that âreasonably-successfully defending yourself against criticism is generally good for your reputation not badâ.
(Stopped writing here to post something rather than nothing, I may respond to some other points later)
You could also argue that not everyone has time to read through the details of these discussions, and so people go away with a negative impression. I donât think thatâs right because on a quick skim you can sort of pick up the sentiment of the comment section, and most things like this donât escape the confines of the forum.