For what it’s worth, I think that you are a well-liked and respected critic not just outside of EA, but also within it. You have three posts and 28 comments but a total karma of 1203! Compare this to Emile Torres or Eric Hoel or basically any other external critic with a forum account. I’m not saying this to deny that you have been treated unfairly by EAs, I remember one memorable event when someone else was accused by a prominent EA of being your sock-puppet on basically no evidence. This just to say, I hope you don’t get too discouraged by this, overall I think there’s good reason to believe that you are having some impact, slowly but persistently, and many of us would welcome you continuing to push, even if we have various specific disagreements with you (as I do). This comment reads to me as very exhausted, and I understand if you feel you don’t have the energy to keep it up, but I also don’t think it’s a wasted effort.
I have read the Democratizing Risk paper that got EA criticism and think it was spot on. Not having ever been very popular anywhere (I get by on being “helpful” or “ignorable”), I use my time here to develop knowledge.
Your work and contributions could have good timing right now. You also have credentials and academic papers, all useful to establish your legitimacy for this audience. It might be useful to check to what extent TUA had to do with the FTX crisis, and whether a partitioning of EA ideologies combines or separates the two.
I believe that appetite for risk and attraction to betting is part and parcel of EA, as is a view informed more by wealth than by poverty. This speaks to appetite for financial risk and dissonance about charitable funding.
Critiques of EA bureaucracy could have more impact than critiques of EA ideology. Certainly your work with Luke Kemp on TUA seems like a hard sell for this audience, but I would welcome another round, there’s a silent group of forum readers who could take notice of your effort.
Arguments against TUA visions of AGI just get an ignoring shrug here. Climate change is about as interesting to these folks as the threat of super-fungi. Not very interesting. Maybe a few 100 points on one post, if the author speaks “EA” or is popular. I do think the reasons are ideological rather than epistemic, though ideologies do act as an epistemic filter (as in soldier mindset).
For what it’s worth, I think that you are a well-liked and respected critic not just outside of EA, but also within it. You have three posts and 28 comments but a total karma of 1203! Compare this to Emile Torres or Eric Hoel or basically any other external critic with a forum account. I’m not saying this to deny that you have been treated unfairly by EAs, I remember one memorable event when someone else was accused by a prominent EA of being your sock-puppet on basically no evidence. This just to say, I hope you don’t get too discouraged by this, overall I think there’s good reason to believe that you are having some impact, slowly but persistently, and many of us would welcome you continuing to push, even if we have various specific disagreements with you (as I do). This comment reads to me as very exhausted, and I understand if you feel you don’t have the energy to keep it up, but I also don’t think it’s a wasted effort.
Thank you for taking the time to write this up, it is encouraging—I also had never thought to check my karma …
I have read the Democratizing Risk paper that got EA criticism and think it was spot on. Not having ever been very popular anywhere (I get by on being “helpful” or “ignorable”), I use my time here to develop knowledge.
Your work and contributions could have good timing right now. You also have credentials and academic papers, all useful to establish your legitimacy for this audience. It might be useful to check to what extent TUA had to do with the FTX crisis, and whether a partitioning of EA ideologies combines or separates the two.
I believe that appetite for risk and attraction to betting is part and parcel of EA, as is a view informed more by wealth than by poverty. This speaks to appetite for financial risk and dissonance about charitable funding.
Critiques of EA bureaucracy could have more impact than critiques of EA ideology. Certainly your work with Luke Kemp on TUA seems like a hard sell for this audience, but I would welcome another round, there’s a silent group of forum readers who could take notice of your effort.
Arguments against TUA visions of AGI just get an ignoring shrug here. Climate change is about as interesting to these folks as the threat of super-fungi. Not very interesting. Maybe a few 100 points on one post, if the author speaks “EA” or is popular. I do think the reasons are ideological rather than epistemic, though ideologies do act as an epistemic filter (as in soldier mindset).