I was about to write a comment along the lines of your second point. I agree it’s unreasonable to expect Will to personally comment on or reply to public criticisms of EA/longtermism—lots of people in the community are well-placed to do that.
Devin’s response (also to DavidNash):
“Sorry, there might be a misunderstanding here. The William MacAskill example is supposed to be more a framing device and specific case I’ve been thinking about, not any sort of proof that there’s a problem. As I mention in my epistemic status section, the overall claims I make about EA aren’t defended here, I rely on readers to just share this same impression of current fatigue with critics relative to early EA on reflection. If you don’t, that’s fine, but this piece isn’t going to try to convince you otherwise. On MacAskill more specifically, I agree that he isn’t at all obligated to respond, but my point in bringing him up is that, given his earlier behavior, if there hadn’t been a change in him between then and now, I would have expected he would respond. There are plenty of explanations other than a simple fatigue story, I’m intrigued by barkbellowroar’s comment bellow for instance, but my theory here is that it may be in part related to this broader trend in the movement.”
See my response about the specific reason I think Will and others have not responded—and why I think they are right not to do so directly.
(And I’m still very much on speaking terms with Phil, and understand why he feels aggrieved, even though I don’t agree with him either about his current approach, or the substantive criticisms, as I noted in the piece you linked.)
There was this response by Hadyn Belfield to the longtermism article a few months ago.
I also don’t think that William MacAskill has to be the person that responds to each criticism if there are others better placed to respond.
I was about to write a comment along the lines of your second point. I agree it’s unreasonable to expect Will to personally comment on or reply to public criticisms of EA/longtermism—lots of people in the community are well-placed to do that.
Devin’s response (also to DavidNash): “Sorry, there might be a misunderstanding here. The William MacAskill example is supposed to be more a framing device and specific case I’ve been thinking about, not any sort of proof that there’s a problem. As I mention in my epistemic status section, the overall claims I make about EA aren’t defended here, I rely on readers to just share this same impression of current fatigue with critics relative to early EA on reflection. If you don’t, that’s fine, but this piece isn’t going to try to convince you otherwise. On MacAskill more specifically, I agree that he isn’t at all obligated to respond, but my point in bringing him up is that, given his earlier behavior, if there hadn’t been a change in him between then and now, I would have expected he would respond. There are plenty of explanations other than a simple fatigue story, I’m intrigued by barkbellowroar’s comment bellow for instance, but my theory here is that it may be in part related to this broader trend in the movement.”
See my response about the specific reason I think Will and others have not responded—and why I think they are right not to do so directly.
(And I’m still very much on speaking terms with Phil, and understand why he feels aggrieved, even though I don’t agree with him either about his current approach, or the substantive criticisms, as I noted in the piece you linked.)