I don’t know Carrick very well, but I will be pretty straightforward that this post, in particular in the combination with the top comment by Ryan Carey gives me a really quite bad vibe. It seems obvious to me that anyone saying anything bad right now about Carrick would be pretty severely socially punished by various community leaders, and I expected the community leadership to avoid saying so many effusively positive things in a context where it’s really hard for people to provide counterevidence, especially when it comes with an ask for substantial career shifts and funding.
I’ve seen many people receive genuine references in the EA community, many of them quite positive, but they usually are expressed substantially more measured and careful than this post. This post reads to me like a marketing piece that I do not trust, and that I expect to exaggerate at many points (like, did Carrick really potentially save “thousands of lives”? An assertion thrown around widely in the world, but one that is very rarely true, and one that I also doubt is true in this case, by the usual EA standards of evidence).
I don’t know Carrick, and the little that I’ve seen seemed positive and reasonable, and I think he is very likely going to be a vastly better congress person than people currently elected from the perspective of my values and principles, but I still feel like that isn’t sufficient reason to break many norms we have about exaggerating and being honest in our assessments of others, and being grounded and measured in the references and endorsements we give to others (in particular in combination with threats of negative consequences to anyone who provides counterevidence).
I understand that posts like this, and their surrounding social dynamics, are a norm in political races, and that I expect people participating in these races to feel like they are necessary. I haven’t thought through the tradeoffs here in much detail, but I am pretty confident posts like this have a cost on the quality of the discourse in EA and the forum. That cost might be worth it, though I do think it is a substantial cost and a major reason for why I am quite hesitant for many people in the EA community to get too involved with politics (though my real expectation is that we probably could just be honest and straightforward, and this wouldn’t actually hurt candidates, and we could just get the best of both worlds, but I do know that many people disagree with me on this).
Edit: Trying to operationalize what I would like to see instead of posts like this, I feel like I would like to have discourse about political candidates that allows readers of the forum to straightforwardly distinguish between four different cases for a potential candidate:
This candidate is really good and competent, by both the the lights of the EA community, and by the lights of the broader world, as measured by their own standards
This candidate is good and competent by the lights of the EA community, but it’s not clear whether they are particularly good by the lights of the rest of the world
This candidate seems good and competent by the lights of the general political world, but is not a good candidate from an EA perspective
This candidate is not a good fit for office, either from the perspective of the EA community, or by the lights of the rest of the world
I feel like this post kind of doesn’t really provide me with evidence to distinguish between these four cases. Like, I am not sure whether I would actually see evidence that looks very different from this for a candidate that isn’t actually a very good fit for political office at all. Or I would see evidence that’s different if a candidate looks good from an EA perspective, but not good from a broader lights perspective.
To be clear, I do think there is value in clear and unambiguous endorsements, and there is real evidence communicated here from ASB. But I feel like the way the evidence is communicated actually makes each individual piece less trustworthy, and I can’t shake this deep underlying current of the piece trying to persuade me instead of trying to inform me. A core part of this is definitely that I expect negative evidence about Carrick to be quite systematically filtered out, but another component is that a number of considerations that seem relatively irrelevant from an EA perspective (like Carrick’s childhood background) are given at the same time as pretty relevant statements (like the positive working experience that ASB had), in a way that makes me think I should treat both of them as the same.
Like, as an example, I feel like Carrick’s childhood background in this primarily serves the purpose of making Carrick emotionally sympathetic, without actually being any real bayesian evidence on whether he is a good or a bad fit for political office. I do think in an important sense, his background matters, but not because it should be compelling directly to me, but because I should expect others to find it compelling, and so assign higher chances to his political success, but signposting that kind of distinction feels very important to me when discussing political candidates.
I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding—I’m not asking people to narrowly conform to some message. For example, if you want to disagree with Andrew’s estimate of the number of lives that Carrick has saved, go ahead. I’m saying exhibit a basic level of cultural and political sensitivity. One of the strengths of the effective altruism community is that it’s been able to incorporate people to whom that doesn’t always come naturally, but this seems like a moment when it’s required anyway.
Yeah, my reading of your comment was in some ways the opposite of Habryka’s original take, since I was reading it as primarily directed at people who might support Carrick in weird/antisocial ways, rather than people who might dissent from supporting him.
Yeah, I had a chat with Ryan via PM as well, and it does seem like I interpreted him as saying something more strong than he had intended to say. So for anyone else who might have had a similar feeling, hopefully this thread is a useful clarification.
in particular in the combination with the top comment by Ryan Carey gives me a really quite bad vibe.
I think you are interpreting RyanCarey’s comment as silencing of dissent. This seems unfair to me.
I thought RyanCarey’s comment was sort of specifically wincing about people saying specific weird things, like speculating about certain kinds of coordination or suggesting certain faculty with politics.
Given how snippets can be used unfairly (see /r/sneerclub) and also considering whatever is going on in American politics, this concern seems valid.
The comment seems orthogonal to frowning on dissent about the candidate or supporting elections in general.
I think writing a caution can be difficult. You don’t want to be get specific, and sounding overly worried is counterproductive.
Dropping a quick comment to say I’ve upvoted this and might respond with more later. I do concede the claim about thousands of lives was not throughly scrutinized and I’m getting more info on that now (and will remove if it doesn’t check out). I otherwise stand by what I’ve written and also think Oli has worthwhile points.
Update: after discussing and looking at some background documentation with Oli, we think the claim about ‘potentially thousands of lives’ is sufficiently supported.
though my real expectation is that we probably could just be honest and straightforward, and this wouldn’t actually hurt candidates
Endorsed.
Lately I’ve had two minor unrelated experiences where I have been recommended to not say what I believe straight up out of fear of being misunderstood by people outside the community.
I think on the margin the community is too concerned with reacting to “what people might think” instead of their actual reactions.
I think on the margin the community is too concerned with reacting to “what people might think” instead of their actual reactions.
I see where you’re coming from with this general heuristic, but I’m less sure how applicable the heuristic is to this context. In most cases, it seems right to ask, “How will a random person react if they hear X, if they randomly stumble across it?” But given the adversarial nature of politics, the more relevant question here might be, “How will a random person react if they hear X, if it’s presented however an adversary wants to present it?” And my intuition is that the latter question, when it’s very relevant, warrants lots more caution in public communications (while high openness is still great in certain private communications).
I don’t know Carrick very well, but I will be pretty straightforward that this post, in particular in the combination with the top comment by Ryan Carey gives me a really quite bad vibe. It seems obvious to me that anyone saying anything bad right now about Carrick would be pretty severely socially punished by various community leaders, and I expected the community leadership to avoid saying so many effusively positive things in a context where it’s really hard for people to provide counterevidence, especially when it comes with an ask for substantial career shifts and funding.
I’ve seen many people receive genuine references in the EA community, many of them quite positive, but they usually are expressed substantially more measured and careful than this post. This post reads to me like a marketing piece that I do not trust, and that I expect to exaggerate at many points (like, did Carrick really potentially save “thousands of lives”? An assertion thrown around widely in the world, but one that is very rarely true, and one that I also doubt is true in this case, by the usual EA standards of evidence).
I don’t know Carrick, and the little that I’ve seen seemed positive and reasonable, and I think he is very likely going to be a vastly better congress person than people currently elected from the perspective of my values and principles, but I still feel like that isn’t sufficient reason to break many norms we have about exaggerating and being honest in our assessments of others, and being grounded and measured in the references and endorsements we give to others (in particular in combination with threats of negative consequences to anyone who provides counterevidence).
I understand that posts like this, and their surrounding social dynamics, are a norm in political races, and that I expect people participating in these races to feel like they are necessary. I haven’t thought through the tradeoffs here in much detail, but I am pretty confident posts like this have a cost on the quality of the discourse in EA and the forum. That cost might be worth it, though I do think it is a substantial cost and a major reason for why I am quite hesitant for many people in the EA community to get too involved with politics (though my real expectation is that we probably could just be honest and straightforward, and this wouldn’t actually hurt candidates, and we could just get the best of both worlds, but I do know that many people disagree with me on this).
Edit: Trying to operationalize what I would like to see instead of posts like this, I feel like I would like to have discourse about political candidates that allows readers of the forum to straightforwardly distinguish between four different cases for a potential candidate:
This candidate is really good and competent, by both the the lights of the EA community, and by the lights of the broader world, as measured by their own standards
This candidate is good and competent by the lights of the EA community, but it’s not clear whether they are particularly good by the lights of the rest of the world
This candidate seems good and competent by the lights of the general political world, but is not a good candidate from an EA perspective
This candidate is not a good fit for office, either from the perspective of the EA community, or by the lights of the rest of the world
I feel like this post kind of doesn’t really provide me with evidence to distinguish between these four cases. Like, I am not sure whether I would actually see evidence that looks very different from this for a candidate that isn’t actually a very good fit for political office at all. Or I would see evidence that’s different if a candidate looks good from an EA perspective, but not good from a broader lights perspective.
To be clear, I do think there is value in clear and unambiguous endorsements, and there is real evidence communicated here from ASB. But I feel like the way the evidence is communicated actually makes each individual piece less trustworthy, and I can’t shake this deep underlying current of the piece trying to persuade me instead of trying to inform me. A core part of this is definitely that I expect negative evidence about Carrick to be quite systematically filtered out, but another component is that a number of considerations that seem relatively irrelevant from an EA perspective (like Carrick’s childhood background) are given at the same time as pretty relevant statements (like the positive working experience that ASB had), in a way that makes me think I should treat both of them as the same.
Like, as an example, I feel like Carrick’s childhood background in this primarily serves the purpose of making Carrick emotionally sympathetic, without actually being any real bayesian evidence on whether he is a good or a bad fit for political office. I do think in an important sense, his background matters, but not because it should be compelling directly to me, but because I should expect others to find it compelling, and so assign higher chances to his political success, but signposting that kind of distinction feels very important to me when discussing political candidates.
I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding—I’m not asking people to narrowly conform to some message. For example, if you want to disagree with Andrew’s estimate of the number of lives that Carrick has saved, go ahead. I’m saying exhibit a basic level of cultural and political sensitivity. One of the strengths of the effective altruism community is that it’s been able to incorporate people to whom that doesn’t always come naturally, but this seems like a moment when it’s required anyway.
Yeah, my reading of your comment was in some ways the opposite of Habryka’s original take, since I was reading it as primarily directed at people who might support Carrick in weird/antisocial ways, rather than people who might dissent from supporting him.
That’s...a lot of karma.
Yeah, I had a chat with Ryan via PM as well, and it does seem like I interpreted him as saying something more strong than he had intended to say. So for anyone else who might have had a similar feeling, hopefully this thread is a useful clarification.
I think you are interpreting RyanCarey’s comment as silencing of dissent. This seems unfair to me.
I thought RyanCarey’s comment was sort of specifically wincing about people saying specific weird things, like speculating about certain kinds of coordination or suggesting certain faculty with politics.
Given how snippets can be used unfairly (see /r/sneerclub) and also considering whatever is going on in American politics, this concern seems valid.
The comment seems orthogonal to frowning on dissent about the candidate or supporting elections in general.
I think writing a caution can be difficult. You don’t want to be get specific, and sounding overly worried is counterproductive.
Dropping a quick comment to say I’ve upvoted this and might respond with more later. I do concede the claim about thousands of lives was not throughly scrutinized and I’m getting more info on that now (and will remove if it doesn’t check out). I otherwise stand by what I’ve written and also think Oli has worthwhile points.
Update: after discussing and looking at some background documentation with Oli, we think the claim about ‘potentially thousands of lives’ is sufficiently supported.
Endorsed.
Lately I’ve had two minor unrelated experiences where I have been recommended to not say what I believe straight up out of fear of being misunderstood by people outside the community.
I think on the margin the community is too concerned with reacting to “what people might think” instead of their actual reactions.
I see where you’re coming from with this general heuristic, but I’m less sure how applicable the heuristic is to this context. In most cases, it seems right to ask, “How will a random person react if they hear X, if they randomly stumble across it?” But given the adversarial nature of politics, the more relevant question here might be, “How will a random person react if they hear X, if it’s presented however an adversary wants to present it?” And my intuition is that the latter question, when it’s very relevant, warrants lots more caution in public communications (while high openness is still great in certain private communications).