With that out of the way, I even more want to say that the following perspective strikes me as immoral, in that it creates terrible, unfair incentives:
“—I actually do think that outsiders are permitted to ask you to fix problems because your stated ambition is to do risk analysis for all of us, not just for effective altruism, but for, depending on what kind of EA you are, a whole category of sentient beings, including catagories as large as ‘humanity’ or ‘future beings’. That means that even if I don’t want to wear your brand, I can demand that you answer the questions of who gets to be in the positions to influence funding and why? And if it’s not transparent, why is it not transparent? Is there a good reason for why it is not transparent? If I am your moral patient, you should tell me why your current organizational structures are more solid, more epistemically trustworthy than an alterntive ones.”
The problem I have with this framing is that it “punishes” EA (by applying isolated demands of “justify yourselves”) for its ambitious attempts to improve the world, while other groups of people (or other ideologies) (presumably?) don’t have to justify their inaction. And these demands come at a time when EA doesn’t even have that much power/influence. (If EA were about to work out the constitution of a world government about to be installed, then yeah, it would very much be warranted – both for EA outsiders and insiders – to see “let’s scrutinize EA and EAs” as a main priority!)
Immoral?This is a surprising descriptor to see used here. The standard of “justify yourselves” to a community soup kitchen, or some other group / ideology is very different to the standard of “justify yourselves” to a movement apparently dedicated to doing the most good it can for those who need it most / all humans / all sentient beings / all sentience that may exist in the far future. The decision relevant point shouldn’t be “well, does [some other group] justify themselves and have transparency and have good institutions and have epistemically trustworthy systems? If not, asking EA to reach it is an isolated demand for rigour, and creates terrible incentives.” Like—what follows? Are you suggesting we should then ignore this because other groups don’t do this? Or because critics of EA don’t symmetrically apply these criticisms to all groups around the world?
The questions (imo) should be something like—are these actions beneficial in helping EA be more impactful?[1] Are there other ways of achieving the same goals better than what’s proposed? Are any of these options worth the costs? I don’t see why other groups’ inaction justifies EA’s, if it’s the case that these actions are in fact beneficial.
And these demands come at a time when EA doesn’t even have that much power/influence. (If EA were about to work out the constitution of a world government about to be installed, then yeah, it would very much be warranted – both for EA outsiders and insiders – to see “let’s scrutinize EA and EAs” as a main priority!)
If EA wants to be in a position to work out the constitution of a world government about to be installed, it needs to first show outsiders that it’s more than a place of interesting intellectual ideas, but a place that can be trusted to come up with interventions and solutions that will actually work in practice. If the standard for “scrutinising EA” is when EA is about to work out the constitution of a world government about to be installed, it is probably already too late.
What I’m criticizing here is the attitude of “you owe us answers” rather than “here’s some criticism, would be curious for replies, especially if more people agree with my criticism (in which case the voices calling replies will automatically grow/become louder).”
I don’t want to engage in a discussion about the pros and cons of the Democratising Risk paper, but from an outsider’s perspective it seems pretty clear to me that Carla did engage in a good faith “EA-insider” way, even if you don’t think she’s expressing criticism in a way you like now. But again—if you think EA is actually analogous to Frodo and responsible for saving the world, of course it would be reasonable for outsiders to take strong interest in what your plan is, and where it might go wrong, or be concerned about any unilateral actions you might take—they are directly impacted by what you choose to do with the ring, they might be in a position to greatly help or hinder you. For example, they might want someone more capable to deliver the ring, and not just the person who happened to inherit it from his cousin.
More generally, EA should remain open to criticism that isn’t delivered at your communication norms, and risks leaving value on the table if it ignores criticism solely because it isn’t expressed in an attitude that you prefer.
e.g. via more trust within the community at those who are steering it, more trust from external donors, more trust from stakeholders who are affected by EA’s goals, or some other way?
Immoral? This is a really surprising descriptor to see used here.
Yeah. I have strong feelings that social norms or norms of discourse should never disincentivize trying to do more than the very minimum one can get away with as an apathetic person or as a jerk. For example, I’m annoyed when people punish others for honesty in cases where it would have been easy to tell a lie and look better. Likewise, I find it unfair if having the stated goal to make the future better for all sentient beings is somehow taken to imply “Oh, you care for the future of all humans, and even animals? That’s suspicious – we’re definitely going to apply extra scrutiny towards you.” Meanwhile, AI capabilities companies continue to scale up compute and most of the world is busy discussing soccer or what not. Yet somehow,”Are EAs following democratic processes and why does their funding come from very few sources?” is made into the bigger issue than widespread apathy or the extent to which civilization might be acutely at risk.
The question shouldn’t be “well, does [some other group] justify themselves and have transparency and have good institutions and have epistemically trustworthy systems? If not, asking EA to reach it is an isolated demand for rigour, and creates terrible incentives.” Like—what follows?
EAs who are serious about their stated goals have the most incentive of anyone to help the EA movement get its act together. The idea that “it’s important to have good institutions” is something EA owes to outsiders is what seems weird to me. Doesn’t this framing kind of suggest that EAs couldn’t motivate themselves to try their best if it weren’t for “institutional safeguards.” What a depressing view of humans, that they can only act according to their stated ideals if they’re watched at every step and have to justify themselves to critics!
EAs have discussions about governance issues EA-internally, too. It’s possible (in theory) that EA has as many blindspots as Zoe thinks, but it’s also possible that Zoe is wrong (or maybe it’s something in between). Either way, I don’t think anyone in EA, nor “EA” as a movement, has any obligation to engage in great detail with Zoe’s criticisms if they don’t think that’s useful.* (Not to say that they don’t consider the criticism useful – my impression is that there are EAs on both sides, and that’s fine!)
If a lot of people agree with Zoe’s criticism, that creates more social pressure to answer to her points. That’s probably a decent mechanism to determine what an “appropriate” level of minimally-mandatory engagement should be – though it depends a bit whether the social pressure comes from well-intentioned people who reasonably informed about the issues or whether some kind of “let’s all pile on these stupid EAs” dynamics emerge. (So far, the dynamics seem healthy to me, but if EA keeps getting trashed in the media, then this could change.)
*(I guess if someone’s impression of EA was “group of people who want to turn all available resources into happiness simulations regardless of what existing people want for their future,” then it would be reasonable for them to go like, “wtf, if that’s your movement’s plan, I’m concerned!” However, that would be a strawman impression of EA. Most EAs endorse moral views according to which individual preferences matter and “eudaimonia” is basically “everyone gets what they most want.” Besides, even the few hedonist utilitarians [or negative utilitarians] within EA think preferences matter and argue for being nice to others with different views.)
The questions should just be—are these actions beneficial in helping EA be more impactful? [1] Are there other ways of achieving the same goals better than what’s proposed? Are any of these options worth the costs? I don’t see why other groups’ inaction justifies EA’s, if it’s the case that these actions are in fact beneficial.
I don’t disagree with this part. I definitely think it’s wise for EAs to engage with critics, especially thoughtful critics, which I consider Zoe to be one of the best examples of, despite disagreeing with probably at least 50% of her specific suggestions.
I don’t want to engage in a discussion about the pros and cons of the Democratising Risk paper, but from an outsider’s perspective it seems pretty clear to me that Carla did engage in a good faith “EA-insider” way, even if you don’t think she’s expressing criticism in a way you like now.
While I did use the word “immoral,” I was only commenting on the framing Zoe/Carla used in that one particular paragraph I quoted. I definitely wasn’t describing her overall behavior!
In case you want my opinion, I am a bit concerned that her rhetoric is often a bit “sensationalist” in a nuance-lacking way, and this makes EA look bad to journalists in a way I consider uncalled for. But I wouldn’t label that “acting in bad-faith;” far from it!
But again—if you think EA is actually analogous to Frodo and responsible for saving the world, of course it would be reasonable for outsiders to take interest in what your plan is, and where it might go wrong—they are directly impacted by what you choose to do with the ring, they might be in a position to greatly help or hinder you. For example, they might want someone more capable to deliver the ring, and not just the person who happened to inherit it from his cousin.
Yeah, I agree with all of that. Still, in the end, it’s up to EAs themselves to decide which criticisms to engage with at length and where it maybe isn’t so productive.
For example, they might want someone more capable to deliver the ring, and not just the person who happened to inherit it from his cousin.
In the books (or the movies), this part is made easy by having a kind and wise old wizard – who wouldn’t consider going with Gandalf’s advice a defensible decision-procedure!
In reality, “who gets to wield power” is more complicated. But one important point in my original comment was that EA doesn’t even have that much power, and no ring (nor anything analogous to it – that’s a place where the analogy breaks). So, it’s a bit weird to subject EA to as much scrutiny as would be warranted if they were about to enshrine their views into the constitution of a world government. All longtermist EA is really trying to do right now is trying to ensure that people won’t be dead soon so that there’ll be the option to talk governance and so on later on. (BTW, I do expect EAs to write up proposals for visions of AI-aided ideal governance at some point. I think that’s good to have and good to discuss. I don’t see it as the main priority right now because EAs haven’t yet made any massive bids for power in the world. Besides, it’s not like whatever the default would otherwise be has much justification. And you could even argue that EAs have done the most so far out of any group promoting discourse about important issues related to fair governance of the future.)
Thanks for sharing! We have some differing views on this which I will focus on—but I agree with much of what you say and do appreciate your thoughts + engagement here.
Likewise, I find it unfair if having the stated goal to make the future better for all sentient beings is somehow taken to imply “Oh, you care for the future of all humans, and even animals? That’s suspicious – we’re definitely going to apply extra scrutiny towards you.” Meanwhile, AI capabilities companies continue to scale up compute and most of the world is busy discussing soccer or what not. Yet somehow,”Are EAs following democratic processes and why does their funding come from very few sources?” is made into the bigger issue than widespread apathy or the extent to which civilization might be acutely at risk.
It sounds like you are getting the impression that criticism directed at EA indicates that people criticising EA think this is a larger issue than AI capabilities or widespread apathy etc, if they aren’t spending their time lobbying against those larger issues. But there might be other explanations for their focus—any given individual’s sphere of influence, tractability, personal identity, and others can all be factors that contribute here.
EAs who are serious about their stated goals have the most incentive of anyone to help the EA movement get its act together. The idea that “it’s important to have good institutions” is something EA owes to outsiders is what seems weird to me. Doesn’t this framing kind of suggest that EAs couldn’t motivate themselves to try their best if it weren’t for “institutional safeguards.”
“It’s important to have good institutions” is clearly something that “serious EAs” are strongly incentivised to do. But people who have a lot of power and influence and funding also face incentives to maintain a status quo that they benefit from. EA is no different, and people seeking to do good are not exempt from these kinds of incentives. And EAs who are serious about things should acknowledge that they are subject to these incentives, as well as the possibility that one reason outsiders might be speaking up about this is because they think EAs aren’t taking the problem seriously enough. The benefit of the outside critic is NOT that EAs have some special obligation towards them (though, in this case, if your actions directly impact them, then they are a relevant stakeholder that is worth considering), but because they are somewhat removed and may be able to provide some insight into an issue that is harder for you to see when you are deeply surrounded by other EAs and people who are directly mission / value-aligned.
What a depressing view of humans, that they can only act according to their stated ideals if they’re watched at every step and have to justify themselves to critics!
I think this goes too far, I don’t think this is the claim being made. The standard is just “would better systems and institutional safeguards better align EA’s stated ideals and what happens in practice? If so, what would this look like, and how would EA organisations implement these?”. My guess is you probably agree with this though?
Either way, I don’t think anyone in EA, nor “EA” as a movement, has any obligation to engage in great detail
I guess if someone’s impression of EA was “group of people who want to turn all available resources into happiness simulations regardless of what existing people want for their future”
Nitpick: while I agree that it would be a strawman, it isn’t the only scenario for outsiders to be concerned. There are also people who disagree with some longtermists vision of the future, there are people who think EA’s general approach is bad, and it could follow that those people will think $$ on EA causes are poorly spent and should be spent in [some different way]. There are also people who think EA is a talent drain away from important issues. Of course, this doesn’t interact with the extent to which EA is “obligated” to respond, especially because many of these takes aren’t great. I agree that there’s no obligation, per se. But the claim is “outsiders are permitted to ASK you to fix your problems”, not that you are obligated to respond (though subsequent sentences RE: “I can demand” or “you should” might be a source of miscommunication).
I guess the way I see it is something like—EA isn’t obligated to respond to any outsider criticism, but if you want to be taken seriously by these outsiders who have these concerns, if you want buy-in from people who you claim to be working with and working for, if you don’t want people at social entrepreneurship symposiums seriously considering questions like “Is the way to do the most good to destroy effective altruism?”, then it could be in your best interest to take good-faith criticisms and concerns seriously, even if the attitude comes across poor, because it likely reflects some barrier in you achieving your goals. But I think there probably isn’t much disagreement between us here.
Yeah. I have strong feelings that social norms or norms of discourse should never disincentivize trying to do more than the very minimum one can get away with as an apathetic person or as a jerk. For example, I’m annoyed when people punish others for honesty in cases where it would have been easy to tell a lie and look better. Likewise, I find it unfair if having the stated goal to make the future better for all sentient beings is somehow taken to imply “Oh, you care for the future of all humans, and even animals? That’s suspicious – we’re definitely going to apply extra scrutiny towards you.” Meanwhile, AI capabilities companies continue to scale up compute and most of the world is busy discussing soccer or what not. Yet somehow,”Are EAs following democratic processes and why does their funding come from very few sources?” is made into the bigger issue than widespread apathy or the extent to which civilization might be acutely at risk.
I think this is an undervalued idea. But I also think that there’s a distinct but closely related idea, which is valuable, which is that for any Group X with Goal Y, it is nearly always instrumentally valuable for Group X to hear about suggestions about how it can better advance Goal Y, especially from those who believe that Goal Y is valuable. Sometimes this will read as (or have the effect of) disincentivizing adopting Goal Y (because it leads to criticism), but in fact it’s often much easier to marginally improve the odds of Goal Y being achieved by attempting to persuade Group X to do better at Y than to persuade Group ~X who believes ~Y. I take Carla Zoe to be doing this good sort of criticism, or at least that’s the most valuable way to read her work.
I would also point out that I think the proposition that ” that social norms or norms of discourse should never disincentivize trying to do more than the very minimum one can get away with as an apathetic person or as a jerk” is both:
Probably undesirable to implement in practice because any criticism will have some disincentivizing effect.
Probably violated by your comment itself, since I’d guess that any normal person would be disincentivized to some extent by engaging in constructive criticism (above the baseline of apathy or jerkiness) that is likely to be labeled as immoral.
This is just to say that I value the general maxim you’re trying to advance here, but “never” is way too strong. Then it’s just a boring balancing question.
“Never” is too strong, okay. But I disagree with your second point. I feel like I was only speaking out against the framing that critics of EA are entitled to a lengthy reply because of EA being ambitious in its scope of caring. (This framing was explicit at least in the quoted paragraph, not necessarily in her post as a whole or her previous work.) I don’t feel like I was discouraging criticism. Basically, my point wasn’t about the act of criticizing at all, it was only about an added expectation that went with it, which I’d paraphrase as “EAs are doing something wrong unless they answer to my concerns point by point.”
I feel like I was only speaking out against the framing that critics of EA are entitled to a lengthy reply because of EA being ambitious in its scope of caring. (This framing was explicit at least in the quoted paragraph, not necessarily in her post as a whole or her previous work.)
Ah, okay. That seems more reasonable. Sorry for misunderstanding.
Immoral? This is a surprising descriptor to see used here.
The standard of “justify yourselves” to a community soup kitchen, or some other group / ideology is very different to the standard of “justify yourselves” to a movement apparently dedicated to doing the most good it can for those who need it most / all humans / all sentient beings / all sentience that may exist in the far future. The decision relevant point shouldn’t be “well, does [some other group] justify themselves and have transparency and have good institutions and have epistemically trustworthy systems? If not, asking EA to reach it is an isolated demand for rigour, and creates terrible incentives.” Like—what follows? Are you suggesting we should then ignore this because other groups don’t do this? Or because critics of EA don’t symmetrically apply these criticisms to all groups around the world?
The questions (imo) should be something like—are these actions beneficial in helping EA be more impactful?[1] Are there other ways of achieving the same goals better than what’s proposed? Are any of these options worth the costs? I don’t see why other groups’ inaction justifies EA’s, if it’s the case that these actions are in fact beneficial.
If EA wants to be in a position to work out the constitution of a world government about to be installed, it needs to first show outsiders that it’s more than a place of interesting intellectual ideas, but a place that can be trusted to come up with interventions and solutions that will actually work in practice. If the standard for “scrutinising EA” is when EA is about to work out the constitution of a world government about to be installed, it is probably already too late.
I don’t want to engage in a discussion about the pros and cons of the Democratising Risk paper, but from an outsider’s perspective it seems pretty clear to me that Carla did engage in a good faith “EA-insider” way, even if you don’t think she’s expressing criticism in a way you like now. But again—if you think EA is actually analogous to Frodo and responsible for saving the world, of course it would be reasonable for outsiders to take strong interest in what your plan is, and where it might go wrong, or be concerned about any unilateral actions you might take—they are directly impacted by what you choose to do with the ring, they might be in a position to greatly help or hinder you. For example, they might want someone more capable to deliver the ring, and not just the person who happened to inherit it from his cousin.
More generally, EA should remain open to criticism that isn’t delivered at your communication norms, and risks leaving value on the table if it ignores criticism solely because it isn’t expressed in an attitude that you prefer.
e.g. via more trust within the community at those who are steering it, more trust from external donors, more trust from stakeholders who are affected by EA’s goals, or some other way?
Yeah. I have strong feelings that social norms or norms of discourse should never disincentivize trying to do more than the very minimum one can get away with as an apathetic person or as a jerk. For example, I’m annoyed when people punish others for honesty in cases where it would have been easy to tell a lie and look better. Likewise, I find it unfair if having the stated goal to make the future better for all sentient beings is somehow taken to imply “Oh, you care for the future of all humans, and even animals? That’s suspicious – we’re definitely going to apply extra scrutiny towards you.” Meanwhile, AI capabilities companies continue to scale up compute and most of the world is busy discussing soccer or what not. Yet somehow,”Are EAs following democratic processes and why does their funding come from very few sources?” is made into the bigger issue than widespread apathy or the extent to which civilization might be acutely at risk.
EAs who are serious about their stated goals have the most incentive of anyone to help the EA movement get its act together. The idea that “it’s important to have good institutions” is something EA owes to outsiders is what seems weird to me. Doesn’t this framing kind of suggest that EAs couldn’t motivate themselves to try their best if it weren’t for “institutional safeguards.” What a depressing view of humans, that they can only act according to their stated ideals if they’re watched at every step and have to justify themselves to critics!
EAs have discussions about governance issues EA-internally, too. It’s possible (in theory) that EA has as many blindspots as Zoe thinks, but it’s also possible that Zoe is wrong (or maybe it’s something in between). Either way, I don’t think anyone in EA, nor “EA” as a movement, has any obligation to engage in great detail with Zoe’s criticisms if they don’t think that’s useful.* (Not to say that they don’t consider the criticism useful – my impression is that there are EAs on both sides, and that’s fine!)
If a lot of people agree with Zoe’s criticism, that creates more social pressure to answer to her points. That’s probably a decent mechanism to determine what an “appropriate” level of minimally-mandatory engagement should be – though it depends a bit whether the social pressure comes from well-intentioned people who reasonably informed about the issues or whether some kind of “let’s all pile on these stupid EAs” dynamics emerge. (So far, the dynamics seem healthy to me, but if EA keeps getting trashed in the media, then this could change.)
*(I guess if someone’s impression of EA was “group of people who want to turn all available resources into happiness simulations regardless of what existing people want for their future,” then it would be reasonable for them to go like, “wtf, if that’s your movement’s plan, I’m concerned!” However, that would be a strawman impression of EA. Most EAs endorse moral views according to which individual preferences matter and “eudaimonia” is basically “everyone gets what they most want.” Besides, even the few hedonist utilitarians [or negative utilitarians] within EA think preferences matter and argue for being nice to others with different views.)
I don’t disagree with this part. I definitely think it’s wise for EAs to engage with critics, especially thoughtful critics, which I consider Zoe to be one of the best examples of, despite disagreeing with probably at least 50% of her specific suggestions.
While I did use the word “immoral,” I was only commenting on the framing Zoe/Carla used in that one particular paragraph I quoted. I definitely wasn’t describing her overall behavior!
In case you want my opinion, I am a bit concerned that her rhetoric is often a bit “sensationalist” in a nuance-lacking way, and this makes EA look bad to journalists in a way I consider uncalled for. But I wouldn’t label that “acting in bad-faith;” far from it!
Yeah, I agree with all of that. Still, in the end, it’s up to EAs themselves to decide which criticisms to engage with at length and where it maybe isn’t so productive.
In the books (or the movies), this part is made easy by having a kind and wise old wizard – who wouldn’t consider going with Gandalf’s advice a defensible decision-procedure!
In reality, “who gets to wield power” is more complicated. But one important point in my original comment was that EA doesn’t even have that much power, and no ring (nor anything analogous to it – that’s a place where the analogy breaks). So, it’s a bit weird to subject EA to as much scrutiny as would be warranted if they were about to enshrine their views into the constitution of a world government. All longtermist EA is really trying to do right now is trying to ensure that people won’t be dead soon so that there’ll be the option to talk governance and so on later on. (BTW, I do expect EAs to write up proposals for visions of AI-aided ideal governance at some point. I think that’s good to have and good to discuss. I don’t see it as the main priority right now because EAs haven’t yet made any massive bids for power in the world. Besides, it’s not like whatever the default would otherwise be has much justification. And you could even argue that EAs have done the most so far out of any group promoting discourse about important issues related to fair governance of the future.)
Thanks for sharing! We have some differing views on this which I will focus on—but I agree with much of what you say and do appreciate your thoughts + engagement here.
It sounds like you are getting the impression that criticism directed at EA indicates that people criticising EA think this is a larger issue than AI capabilities or widespread apathy etc, if they aren’t spending their time lobbying against those larger issues. But there might be other explanations for their focus—any given individual’s sphere of influence, tractability, personal identity, and others can all be factors that contribute here.
“It’s important to have good institutions” is clearly something that “serious EAs” are strongly incentivised to do. But people who have a lot of power and influence and funding also face incentives to maintain a status quo that they benefit from. EA is no different, and people seeking to do good are not exempt from these kinds of incentives. And EAs who are serious about things should acknowledge that they are subject to these incentives, as well as the possibility that one reason outsiders might be speaking up about this is because they think EAs aren’t taking the problem seriously enough. The benefit of the outside critic is NOT that EAs have some special obligation towards them (though, in this case, if your actions directly impact them, then they are a relevant stakeholder that is worth considering), but because they are somewhat removed and may be able to provide some insight into an issue that is harder for you to see when you are deeply surrounded by other EAs and people who are directly mission / value-aligned.
I think this goes too far, I don’t think this is the claim being made. The standard is just “would better systems and institutional safeguards better align EA’s stated ideals and what happens in practice? If so, what would this look like, and how would EA organisations implement these?”. My guess is you probably agree with this though?
Nitpick: while I agree that it would be a strawman, it isn’t the only scenario for outsiders to be concerned. There are also people who disagree with some longtermists vision of the future, there are people who think EA’s general approach is bad, and it could follow that those people will think $$ on EA causes are poorly spent and should be spent in [some different way]. There are also people who think EA is a talent drain away from important issues. Of course, this doesn’t interact with the extent to which EA is “obligated” to respond, especially because many of these takes aren’t great. I agree that there’s no obligation, per se. But the claim is “outsiders are permitted to ASK you to fix your problems”, not that you are obligated to respond (though subsequent sentences RE: “I can demand” or “you should” might be a source of miscommunication).
I guess the way I see it is something like—EA isn’t obligated to respond to any outsider criticism, but if you want to be taken seriously by these outsiders who have these concerns, if you want buy-in from people who you claim to be working with and working for, if you don’t want people at social entrepreneurship symposiums seriously considering questions like “Is the way to do the most good to destroy effective altruism?”, then it could be in your best interest to take good-faith criticisms and concerns seriously, even if the attitude comes across poor, because it likely reflects some barrier in you achieving your goals. But I think there probably isn’t much disagreement between us here.
I think this is an undervalued idea. But I also think that there’s a distinct but closely related idea, which is valuable, which is that for any Group X with Goal Y, it is nearly always instrumentally valuable for Group X to hear about suggestions about how it can better advance Goal Y, especially from those who believe that Goal Y is valuable. Sometimes this will read as (or have the effect of) disincentivizing adopting Goal Y (because it leads to criticism), but in fact it’s often much easier to marginally improve the odds of Goal Y being achieved by attempting to persuade Group X to do better at Y than to persuade Group ~X who believes ~Y. I take Carla Zoe to be doing this good sort of criticism, or at least that’s the most valuable way to read her work.
I would also point out that I think the proposition that ” that social norms or norms of discourse should never disincentivize trying to do more than the very minimum one can get away with as an apathetic person or as a jerk” is both:
Probably undesirable to implement in practice because any criticism will have some disincentivizing effect.
Probably violated by your comment itself, since I’d guess that any normal person would be disincentivized to some extent by engaging in constructive criticism (above the baseline of apathy or jerkiness) that is likely to be labeled as immoral.
This is just to say that I value the general maxim you’re trying to advance here, but “never” is way too strong. Then it’s just a boring balancing question.
“Never” is too strong, okay. But I disagree with your second point. I feel like I was only speaking out against the framing that critics of EA are entitled to a lengthy reply because of EA being ambitious in its scope of caring. (This framing was explicit at least in the quoted paragraph, not necessarily in her post as a whole or her previous work.) I don’t feel like I was discouraging criticism. Basically, my point wasn’t about the act of criticizing at all, it was only about an added expectation that went with it, which I’d paraphrase as “EAs are doing something wrong unless they answer to my concerns point by point.”
Ah, okay. That seems more reasonable. Sorry for misunderstanding.