Edited to add: I think that I phrased this post misleadingly; I meant to complain mostly about low quality criticism of EA rather than eg criticism of comments. Sorry to be so unclear. I suspect most commenters misunderstood me.
I think that EAs, especially on the EA Forum, are too welcoming to low quality criticism [EDIT: of EA]. I feel like an easy way to get lots of upvotes is to make lots of vague critical comments about how EA isn’t intellectually rigorous enough, or inclusive enough, or whatever. This makes me feel less enthusiastic about engaging with the EA Forum, because it makes me feel like everything I’m saying is being read by a jeering crowd who just want excuses to call me a moron.
I’m not sure how to have a forum where people will listen to criticism open mindedly which doesn’t lead to this bias towards low quality criticism.
1. At an object level, I don’t think I’ve noticed the dynamic particularly strongly on the EA Forum (as opposed to eg. social media). I feel like people are generally pretty positive about each other/the EA project (and if anything are less negative than is perhaps warranted sometimes?). There are occasionally low-quality critical posts (that to some degree reads to me as status plays) that pop up, but they usually get downvoted fairly quickly.
2. At a meta level, I’m not sure how to get around the problem of having a low bar for criticism in general. I think as an individual it’s fairly hard to get good feedback without also being accepting of bad feedback, and likely something similar is true of groups as well?
I feel like an easy way to get lots of upvotes is to make lots of vague critical comments about how EA isn’t intellectually rigorous enough, or inclusive enough, or whatever. This makes me feel less enthusiastic about engaging with the EA Forum, because it makes me feel like everything I’m saying is being read by a jeering crowd who just want excuses to call me a moron.
Could you unpack this a bit? Is it the originating poster who makes you feel that there’s a jeering crowd, or the people up-voting the OP which makes you feel the jeers?
As counterbalance...
Writing, and sharing your writing, is how you often come to know your own thoughts. I often recognise the kernel of truth someone is getting at before they’ve articulated it well, both in written posts and verbally. I’d rather encourage someone for getting at something even if it was lacking, and then guide them to do better. I’d especially prefer to do this given I personally know that it’s difficult to make time to perfect a post whilst doing a job and other commitments.
This is even more the case when it’s on a topic that hasn’t been explored much, such as biases in thinking common to EAs or diversity issues. I accept that in liberal circles being critical on basis of diversity and inclusion or cognitive biases is a good signalling-win, and you might think it would follow suit in EA. But I’m reminded of what Will MacAskill said about 8 months ago on an 80k podcast that he was awake thinking his reputation would be in tatters after posting in the EA forum, that his post would be torn to shreds (didn’t happen). For quite some time I was surprised at the diversity elephant in the room on EA, and welcomed when these critiques came forward. But I was in the room and not pointing out the elephant for a long time because I—like Will—had fears about being torn to shreds for putting myself out there, and I don’t think this is unusual.
I also think that criticisms of underlying trends in groups are really difficult to get at in a substantive way, and though they often come across as put-downs from someone who wants to feel bigger, it is not always clear whether that’s due to authorial intent or reader’s perception. I still think there’s something that can be taken from them though. I remember a scathing article about yuppies who listen to NPR to feel educated and part of the world for signalling purposes. It was very mean-spirited but definitely gave me food for thought on my media consumption and what I am (not) achieving from it. I think a healthy attitude for a community is willingness to find usefulness in seemingly threatening criticism. As all groups are vulnerable to effects of polarisation and fractiousness, this attitude could be a good protective element.
So in summary, even if someone could have done better on articulating their ‘vague critical comments’, I think it’s good to encourage the start of a conversation on a topic which is not easy to bring up or articulate, but is important. So I would say go on ahead and upvote that criticism whilst giving feedback on ways to improve it. If that person hasn’t nailed it, it’s started the conversation at least, and maybe someone else will deliver the argument better. And I think there is a role for us as a community to be curious and open to ‘vague critical comments’ and find the important message, and that will prove more useful than the alternative of shunning it.
I have felt this way as well. I have been a bit unhappy with how many upvotes in my view low quality critiques of mine have gotten (and think I may have fallen prey to a poor incentive structure there). Over the last couple of months I have tried harder to avoid that by having a mental checklist before I post anything but not sure whether I am succeeding. At least I have gotten fewer wildly upvoted comments!
I’ve upvoted some low quality criticism of EA. Some of this is due to emotional biases or whatever, but a reason I still endorse is that I haven’t read strong responses to some obvious criticism.
Example: I currently believe that an important reason EA is slightly uninclusive and moderately undiverse is because EA community-building was targeted at people with a lot of power as a necessary strategic move. Rich people, top university students, etc. It feels like it’s worked, but I haven’t seen a good writeup of the effects of this.
I think the same low-quality criticisms keep popping up because there’s no quick rebuttal. I wish there were a post of “fallacies about problems with EA” that one could quickly link to.
I thought this post was really bad, basically for the reasons described by Rohin in his comment. I think it’s pretty sad that that post has positive karma.
I actually strong upvoted that post, because I wanted to see more engagement with the topic, decision-making under deep uncertainty, since that’s a major point in my skepticism of strong longtermism. I just reduced my vote to a regular upvote. It’s worth noting that Rohin’s comment had more karma than the post itself (even before I reduced my vote).
I pretty much agree with your OP. Regarding that post in particular, I am uncertain about whether it’s a good or bad post. It’s bad in the sense that its author doesn’t seem to have a great grasp of longtermism, and the post basically doesn’t move the conversation forward at all. It’s good in the sense that it’s engaging with an important question, and the author clearly put some effort into it. I don’t know how to balance these considerations.
I agree that post is low-quality in some sense (which is why I didn’t upvote it), but my impression is that its central flaw is being misinformed, in a way that’s fairly easy to identify. I’m more worried about criticism where it’s not even clear how much I agree with the criticism or where it’s socially costly to argue against the criticism because of the way it has been framed.
It also looks like the post got a fair number of downvotes, and that its karma is way lower than for other posts by the same author or on similar topics. So it actually seems to me the karma system is working well in that case.
(Possibly there is an issue where “has a fair number of downvotes” on the EA FOrum corresponds to “has zero karma” in fora with different voting norms/rules, and so the former here appearing too positive if one is more used to fora with the latter norm. Conversely I used to be confused why posts on the Alignment Forum that seemed great to me had more votes than karma score.)
It also looks like the post got a fair number of downvotes, and that its karma is way lower than for other posts by the same author or on similar topics. So it actually seems to me the karma system is working well in that case.
That’s what I thought as well. The top critical comment also has more karma than the top level post, which I have always considered to be functionally equivalent to a top level post being below par.
I agree with this as stated, though I’m not sure how much overlap there is between the things we consider low-quality criticism. (I can think of at least one example where I was mildly annoyed that something got a lot of upvotes, but it seems awkward to point to publicly.)
I’m not so worried about becoming the target of low-quality criticism myself. I’m actually more worried about low-quality criticism crowding out higher-quality criticism. I can definitely think of instances where I wanted to say X but then was like “oh no, if I say X then people will lump this together with some other person saying nearby thing Y in a bad way, so I either need to be extra careful and explain that I’m not saying Y or shouldn’t say X after all”.
I’m overall not super worried because I think the opposite failure mode, i.e. appearing too unwelcoming of criticism, is worse.
I’ve proposed before that voting shouldn’t be anonymous, and that (strong) downvotes should require explanation (either your own comment or a link to someone else’s). Maybe strong upvotes should, too?
Of course, this is perhaps a bad sign about the EA community as a whole, and fixing forum incentives might hide the issue.
This makes me feel less enthusiastic about engaging with the EA Forum, because it makes me feel like everything I’m saying is being read by a jeering crowd who just want excuses to call me a moron.
How much of this do you think is due to the tone or framing of the criticism rather than just its content (accurate or not)?
I’ve proposed before that voting shouldn’t be anonymous, and that (strong) downvotes should require explanation (either your own comment or a link to someone else’s). Maybe strong upvotes should, too?
It seems this could lead to a lot of comments and very rapid ascending through the meta hierarchy! What if I want to strong downvote your strong downvote explanation?
It seems this could lead to a lot of comments and very rapid ascending through the meta hierarchy! What if I want to strong downvote your strong downvote explanation?
I don’t really expect this to happen much, and I’d expect strong downvotes to decay quickly down a thread (which is my impression of what happens now when people do explain voluntarily), unless people are actually just being uncivil.
I also don’t see why this would be a particularly bad thing. I’d rather people hash out their differences properly and come to a mutual understanding than essentially just call each other’s comments very stupid without explanation.
Edited to add: I think that I phrased this post misleadingly; I meant to complain mostly about low quality criticism of EA rather than eg criticism of comments. Sorry to be so unclear. I suspect most commenters misunderstood me.
I think that EAs, especially on the EA Forum, are too welcoming to low quality criticism [EDIT: of EA]. I feel like an easy way to get lots of upvotes is to make lots of vague critical comments about how EA isn’t intellectually rigorous enough, or inclusive enough, or whatever. This makes me feel less enthusiastic about engaging with the EA Forum, because it makes me feel like everything I’m saying is being read by a jeering crowd who just want excuses to call me a moron.
I’m not sure how to have a forum where people will listen to criticism open mindedly which doesn’t lead to this bias towards low quality criticism.
1. At an object level, I don’t think I’ve noticed the dynamic particularly strongly on the EA Forum (as opposed to eg. social media). I feel like people are generally pretty positive about each other/the EA project (and if anything are less negative than is perhaps warranted sometimes?). There are occasionally low-quality critical posts (that to some degree reads to me as status plays) that pop up, but they usually get downvoted fairly quickly.
2. At a meta level, I’m not sure how to get around the problem of having a low bar for criticism in general. I think as an individual it’s fairly hard to get good feedback without also being accepting of bad feedback, and likely something similar is true of groups as well?
Could you unpack this a bit? Is it the originating poster who makes you feel that there’s a jeering crowd, or the people up-voting the OP which makes you feel the jeers?
As counterbalance...
Writing, and sharing your writing, is how you often come to know your own thoughts. I often recognise the kernel of truth someone is getting at before they’ve articulated it well, both in written posts and verbally. I’d rather encourage someone for getting at something even if it was lacking, and then guide them to do better. I’d especially prefer to do this given I personally know that it’s difficult to make time to perfect a post whilst doing a job and other commitments.
This is even more the case when it’s on a topic that hasn’t been explored much, such as biases in thinking common to EAs or diversity issues. I accept that in liberal circles being critical on basis of diversity and inclusion or cognitive biases is a good signalling-win, and you might think it would follow suit in EA. But I’m reminded of what Will MacAskill said about 8 months ago on an 80k podcast that he was awake thinking his reputation would be in tatters after posting in the EA forum, that his post would be torn to shreds (didn’t happen). For quite some time I was surprised at the diversity elephant in the room on EA, and welcomed when these critiques came forward. But I was in the room and not pointing out the elephant for a long time because I—like Will—had fears about being torn to shreds for putting myself out there, and I don’t think this is unusual.
I also think that criticisms of underlying trends in groups are really difficult to get at in a substantive way, and though they often come across as put-downs from someone who wants to feel bigger, it is not always clear whether that’s due to authorial intent or reader’s perception. I still think there’s something that can be taken from them though. I remember a scathing article about yuppies who listen to NPR to feel educated and part of the world for signalling purposes. It was very mean-spirited but definitely gave me food for thought on my media consumption and what I am (not) achieving from it. I think a healthy attitude for a community is willingness to find usefulness in seemingly threatening criticism. As all groups are vulnerable to effects of polarisation and fractiousness, this attitude could be a good protective element.
So in summary, even if someone could have done better on articulating their ‘vague critical comments’, I think it’s good to encourage the start of a conversation on a topic which is not easy to bring up or articulate, but is important. So I would say go on ahead and upvote that criticism whilst giving feedback on ways to improve it. If that person hasn’t nailed it, it’s started the conversation at least, and maybe someone else will deliver the argument better. And I think there is a role for us as a community to be curious and open to ‘vague critical comments’ and find the important message, and that will prove more useful than the alternative of shunning it.
I have felt this way as well. I have been a bit unhappy with how many upvotes in my view low quality critiques of mine have gotten (and think I may have fallen prey to a poor incentive structure there). Over the last couple of months I have tried harder to avoid that by having a mental checklist before I post anything but not sure whether I am succeeding. At least I have gotten fewer wildly upvoted comments!
I’ve upvoted some low quality criticism of EA. Some of this is due to emotional biases or whatever, but a reason I still endorse is that I haven’t read strong responses to some obvious criticism.
Example: I currently believe that an important reason EA is slightly uninclusive and moderately undiverse is because EA community-building was targeted at people with a lot of power as a necessary strategic move. Rich people, top university students, etc. It feels like it’s worked, but I haven’t seen a good writeup of the effects of this.
I think the same low-quality criticisms keep popping up because there’s no quick rebuttal. I wish there were a post of “fallacies about problems with EA” that one could quickly link to.
can you show one actual example of what exactly you mean?
I thought this post was really bad, basically for the reasons described by Rohin in his comment. I think it’s pretty sad that that post has positive karma.
I actually strong upvoted that post, because I wanted to see more engagement with the topic, decision-making under deep uncertainty, since that’s a major point in my skepticism of strong longtermism. I just reduced my vote to a regular upvote. It’s worth noting that Rohin’s comment had more karma than the post itself (even before I reduced my vote).
I pretty much agree with your OP. Regarding that post in particular, I am uncertain about whether it’s a good or bad post. It’s bad in the sense that its author doesn’t seem to have a great grasp of longtermism, and the post basically doesn’t move the conversation forward at all. It’s good in the sense that it’s engaging with an important question, and the author clearly put some effort into it. I don’t know how to balance these considerations.
I agree that post is low-quality in some sense (which is why I didn’t upvote it), but my impression is that its central flaw is being misinformed, in a way that’s fairly easy to identify. I’m more worried about criticism where it’s not even clear how much I agree with the criticism or where it’s socially costly to argue against the criticism because of the way it has been framed.
It also looks like the post got a fair number of downvotes, and that its karma is way lower than for other posts by the same author or on similar topics. So it actually seems to me the karma system is working well in that case.
(Possibly there is an issue where “has a fair number of downvotes” on the EA FOrum corresponds to “has zero karma” in fora with different voting norms/rules, and so the former here appearing too positive if one is more used to fora with the latter norm. Conversely I used to be confused why posts on the Alignment Forum that seemed great to me had more votes than karma score.)
That’s what I thought as well. The top critical comment also has more karma than the top level post, which I have always considered to be functionally equivalent to a top level post being below par.
I agree with this as stated, though I’m not sure how much overlap there is between the things we consider low-quality criticism. (I can think of at least one example where I was mildly annoyed that something got a lot of upvotes, but it seems awkward to point to publicly.)
I’m not so worried about becoming the target of low-quality criticism myself. I’m actually more worried about low-quality criticism crowding out higher-quality criticism. I can definitely think of instances where I wanted to say X but then was like “oh no, if I say X then people will lump this together with some other person saying nearby thing Y in a bad way, so I either need to be extra careful and explain that I’m not saying Y or shouldn’t say X after all”.
I’m overall not super worried because I think the opposite failure mode, i.e. appearing too unwelcoming of criticism, is worse.
I’ve proposed before that voting shouldn’t be anonymous, and that (strong) downvotes should require explanation (either your own comment or a link to someone else’s). Maybe strong upvotes should, too?
Of course, this is perhaps a bad sign about the EA community as a whole, and fixing forum incentives might hide the issue.
How much of this do you think is due to the tone or framing of the criticism rather than just its content (accurate or not)?
It seems this could lead to a lot of comments and very rapid ascending through the meta hierarchy! What if I want to strong downvote your strong downvote explanation?
I don’t really expect this to happen much, and I’d expect strong downvotes to decay quickly down a thread (which is my impression of what happens now when people do explain voluntarily), unless people are actually just being uncivil.
I also don’t see why this would be a particularly bad thing. I’d rather people hash out their differences properly and come to a mutual understanding than essentially just call each other’s comments very stupid without explanation.
I thought the same thing recently.