Hello Will, I’m really enjoying the book so far (it hit shelves not strict-on-sale, so I got it a few days ago)! I have noticed that there’s been a big push from your team for large-scale media attention in the direction of positively voicing your views on longtermism. I was wondering if the team has a strategy for negative publicity as well? This has been something I’ve been worried about for a while, as I think that our movement is small enough that much of what people think about us will come from what outsiders decide to say about us, and my impression of EA’s media strategy recently has been that it rarely publishes response pieces to negative attention outside of twitter or the forum. I’m worried that this strategy is a mistake, but that it will be especially problematic in the wake of the massive media attention EA and longtermism is getting now. I’m wondering if there is any worked out strategy for this issue so far, and if so roughly what it is?
Some sorts of critical commentary are well worth engaging with (e.g. Keiran Setiya’s review of WWOTF); in other cases, where criticism is clearly misrepresentative or strawmanning, I think it’s often best not to engage.
In a sense I agree, but clearly to whom? If it is only clear to us, this might be too convenient an excuse to ignore critics for a movement to allow itself to have, and at any rate leaving it unaddressed will allow misconceptions to spread.
To make a more specific elaboration in light of recent developments, it looks like Emile Torres has written another hit piece just recently. I think it would be a really good idea to try to submit a response to Salon, either by you, or some other prominent longtermist, or if not Salon, maybe Aeon (which I suspect is more likely to take it, although I think it would be the less valuable outlet to get a piece into, since Torres’ piece there is now pretty old, and Aeon isn’t that widely read). Torres seems to be interested in writing these over and over again for as mainstream an audience as possible, and so far there have been no responses from EAs in mainstream outlets, I think having one, especially written for the outlet this piece came from, would be a really good idea. I suspect this piece will get shared a whole lot more than Torres’ other pieces, in light of the increased media attention longtermism is getting, and to many, silence will be seen as damning.
Hello Will, I’m really enjoying the book so far (it hit shelves not strict-on-sale, so I got it a few days ago)! I have noticed that there’s been a big push from your team for large-scale media attention in the direction of positively voicing your views on longtermism. I was wondering if the team has a strategy for negative publicity as well? This has been something I’ve been worried about for a while, as I think that our movement is small enough that much of what people think about us will come from what outsiders decide to say about us, and my impression of EA’s media strategy recently has been that it rarely publishes response pieces to negative attention outside of twitter or the forum. I’m worried that this strategy is a mistake, but that it will be especially problematic in the wake of the massive media attention EA and longtermism is getting now. I’m wondering if there is any worked out strategy for this issue so far, and if so roughly what it is?
Some sorts of critical commentary are well worth engaging with (e.g. Keiran Setiya’s review of WWOTF); in other cases, where criticism is clearly misrepresentative or strawmanning, I think it’s often best not to engage.
In a sense I agree, but clearly to whom? If it is only clear to us, this might be too convenient an excuse to ignore critics for a movement to allow itself to have, and at any rate leaving it unaddressed will allow misconceptions to spread.
To make a more specific elaboration in light of recent developments, it looks like Emile Torres has written another hit piece just recently. I think it would be a really good idea to try to submit a response to Salon, either by you, or some other prominent longtermist, or if not Salon, maybe Aeon (which I suspect is more likely to take it, although I think it would be the less valuable outlet to get a piece into, since Torres’ piece there is now pretty old, and Aeon isn’t that widely read). Torres seems to be interested in writing these over and over again for as mainstream an audience as possible, and so far there have been no responses from EAs in mainstream outlets, I think having one, especially written for the outlet this piece came from, would be a really good idea. I suspect this piece will get shared a whole lot more than Torres’ other pieces, in light of the increased media attention longtermism is getting, and to many, silence will be seen as damning.