When it comes to reforming EA, what is more important is perhaps not how novel the critique is but rather how much the critic’s proposals are engaged with, and it looks like as of now that isn’t happening enough yet.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to repeatedly post the same content, even after it got hundreds of comments, many of which engaged with various ideas at quite some length. There are reasons why rejected ideas were rejected—you should proactively address them, or otherwise introduce new content if you want to achieve something.
There are reasons why rejected ideas were rejected
I don’t think it would be accurate to classify most of the ideas here as rejected, at least not without qualification. My recollection is that there was substantial support for many of these propositions in addition to voices in opposition. On the whole, if I had to sum up the prior discussion on these topics in a single word, I would probably choose inconclusive.[1] That there was no real action on these points suggests that those with the ability to most effectively act on them weren’t convinced, or that they had more important issues on their plate, but that only tells us the reaction from a small part of the community.
And I think that matters from the standpoint of what we can reasonably expect from someone in Maxim’s shoes. If the ideas had been rejected by community consensus on their merits, then the argument that proponents need new arguments/evidence or changed circumstances would be stronger in my book. The prior rejection would be at least some evidence that the ideas were wrong on the merits.
Of course, posting the same ideas every month would just be annoying. But I don’t think there’s been a ton of discussion on these ideas as of late, and there are a significant number of new people each year (plus some people who may be in a better position to act on the ideas than they were in the past).
I agree that what you describe could have been a decent new post. However, I disagree it characterizes what was actually shared here. Consider for the first example (I have editted the formatting):
It has been the most emotionally draining paper we have ever written. We lost sleep, time, friends, collaborators, and mentors because we disagreed on: whether this work should be published, whether potential EA funders would decide against funding us and the institutions we’re affiliated with, and whether the authors whose work we critique would be upset.
While many in the community responded constructively, others reportedly sought to suppress the paper — not on academic grounds, but out of fear that it might alienate funders. The clear implication here is that critique is encouraged, as long as it doesn’t threaten the financial or ideological foundations of the movement.
Somehow the omitted is the idea that… maybe the feedback was negative because the paper wasn’t very good. Which would explain everything else… bad work typically shouldn’t be published, bad work is evidence that future work will also be low quality which is an argument against funding in the future, and it is reasonable for people subject to low-quality criticism to be annoyed. Yet Bob’s post here doesn’t even mention this explanation, despite the 161 upvotes, and simply presents hostility and anti-democraticness as the only explanation.
and there are a significant number of new people each year
Eternal September is meant to be descriptive, not a normative ideal!
When it comes to reforming EA, what is more important is perhaps not how novel the critique is but rather how much the critic’s proposals are engaged with, and it looks like as of now that isn’t happening enough yet.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to repeatedly post the same content, even after it got hundreds of comments, many of which engaged with various ideas at quite some length. There are reasons why rejected ideas were rejected—you should proactively address them, or otherwise introduce new content if you want to achieve something.
I don’t think it would be accurate to classify most of the ideas here as rejected, at least not without qualification. My recollection is that there was substantial support for many of these propositions in addition to voices in opposition. On the whole, if I had to sum up the prior discussion on these topics in a single word, I would probably choose inconclusive.[1] That there was no real action on these points suggests that those with the ability to most effectively act on them weren’t convinced, or that they had more important issues on their plate, but that only tells us the reaction from a small part of the community.
And I think that matters from the standpoint of what we can reasonably expect from someone in Maxim’s shoes. If the ideas had been rejected by community consensus on their merits, then the argument that proponents need new arguments/evidence or changed circumstances would be stronger in my book. The prior rejection would be at least some evidence that the ideas were wrong on the merits.
Of course, posting the same ideas every month would just be annoying. But I don’t think there’s been a ton of discussion on these ideas as of late, and there are a significant number of new people each year (plus some people who may be in a better position to act on the ideas than they were in the past).
I do recognize that some specific ideas on the topic of democracy appear to have been rejected by community consensus on the merits.
I agree that what you describe could have been a decent new post. However, I disagree it characterizes what was actually shared here. Consider for the first example (I have editted the formatting):
Somehow the omitted is the idea that… maybe the feedback was negative because the paper wasn’t very good. Which would explain everything else… bad work typically shouldn’t be published, bad work is evidence that future work will also be low quality which is an argument against funding in the future, and it is reasonable for people subject to low-quality criticism to be annoyed. Yet Bob’s post here doesn’t even mention this explanation, despite the 161 upvotes, and simply presents hostility and anti-democraticness as the only explanation.
Eternal September is meant to be descriptive, not a normative ideal!