“Thanks for the comments. Sorry, I wrote a good deal of this stream of conscious so it isn’t really structured as an argument. More a way of me to connect some personal thoughts/experiences together in a hopefully productive way. I can see how that wouldn’t be super accessible. The basic argument embedded in it though is:
Effective Altruism, like many idealistic movements, started out taking critics very very seriously and trying to reach out to/be charitable to them as much as possible, which is a good thing
Effective Altruism, like most movements that grow older, is not quite like that anymore, it seems to respond with less frequency and generosity to critics than it used to, which is unfortunate but understandable
Understandable as it is, we should at least take a bit more notice of it if that’s the path we are going down because…
Many movements move on from here to ridiculing criticisms by treating common criticisms as though they were obviously, memeably false, and that everyone in the know gets that (I didn’t use examples, but the one most on my mind was the midwit meme format, which only requires the argument being ridiculed, your stated, undefended position, and some cartoons, to make it look like you’ve made a point). This is bad and we should be careful not to start doing it.”
Re: 4, I think this has a reasonably high chance of being correct. I feel somewhat guilty here, as I have indeed made memes critical of some of the criticisms of EA/longtermism, and perhaps this is bad for my soul or the soul of the movement or something. (Though in my partial defense I am publicly critical of the midwit memes specifically)
I agree with Linch, it was difficult to follow your train of thought… but I still found it worth reading to the end.
It feels like you (the OP) had three distinct streams of thought intertwined; (a) the parts about Glen Weyl, (b) the general point that movements tend to stop engaging with critics, and then (c) using EA as your example for (b). This piece may have flowed better if you just cut out the parts about Glen Weyl -I for one had no idea who this was because I don’t engage on those other forums you mentioned. It doesn’t add much to your main point or reflections on the EA movement, and feels like a bit of a distraction from them. (this isjust meant as friendly feedback, take it or leave it).
I tried reading this but found it difficult. I think a bullet-point summary or tl;dr would help, as would section headings.
Devin’s reply/summary:
“Thanks for the comments. Sorry, I wrote a good deal of this stream of conscious so it isn’t really structured as an argument. More a way of me to connect some personal thoughts/experiences together in a hopefully productive way. I can see how that wouldn’t be super accessible. The basic argument embedded in it though is:
Effective Altruism, like many idealistic movements, started out taking critics very very seriously and trying to reach out to/be charitable to them as much as possible, which is a good thing
Effective Altruism, like most movements that grow older, is not quite like that anymore, it seems to respond with less frequency and generosity to critics than it used to, which is unfortunate but understandable
Understandable as it is, we should at least take a bit more notice of it if that’s the path we are going down because…
Many movements move on from here to ridiculing criticisms by treating common criticisms as though they were obviously, memeably false, and that everyone in the know gets that (I didn’t use examples, but the one most on my mind was the midwit meme format, which only requires the argument being ridiculed, your stated, undefended position, and some cartoons, to make it look like you’ve made a point). This is bad and we should be careful not to start doing it.”
Re: 4, I think this has a reasonably high chance of being correct. I feel somewhat guilty here, as I have indeed made memes critical of some of the criticisms of EA/longtermism, and perhaps this is bad for my soul or the soul of the movement or something. (Though in my partial defense I am publicly critical of the midwit memes specifically)
Thank you, I believe that it would be helpful to have this intro on the top of the post.
Done!
I agree with Linch, it was difficult to follow your train of thought… but I still found it worth reading to the end.
It feels like you (the OP) had three distinct streams of thought intertwined; (a) the parts about Glen Weyl, (b) the general point that movements tend to stop engaging with critics, and then (c) using EA as your example for (b). This piece may have flowed better if you just cut out the parts about Glen Weyl -I for one had no idea who this was because I don’t engage on those other forums you mentioned. It doesn’t add much to your main point or reflections on the EA movement, and feels like a bit of a distraction from them. (this is just meant as friendly feedback, take it or leave it).