I strongly downvoted this for not making any of the reasoning transparent and thus contributing little to the discussion beyond stating that “Jan believes this”.
This could sometimes be reasonable for the purpose of deferring to authority, but that is riskier in this case because Jan has severe conflicts of interest due to being employed by a core EA organisation and being a stakeholder in for example a ~$4.7 million grant to buy a chateau.
When the discussion is roughly at the level ‘seem to me obviously worth doing ’ it seem to me fine to state dissent of the form ‘often seems bad or not working to me’.
Stating an opinion is not ‘appeal to authority’. I think in many cases it’s useful to know what people believe, and if I have to choose between a forum where people state their beliefs openly and more often, and a forum, where people state beliefs only when they are willing to write a long and detailed justification, I prefer the first.
I’m curious in which direction you think the supposed ‘conflict of interests’ point:
I’m employed at the same institution (FHI) as Zoe works, and we were part of the same RSP program (although in different cohorts). This mostly creates some incentive to not criticize Zoe’s ideas publicly and would preclude me from e.g. reviewing Zoe’s papers, because of favourable bias.
Also … I think while being a stakeholder in a grant to buy a cheap and cost-saving events venue has not much to do with the topics in question, it mostly creates some incentive to be silent, because by engaging critically with the topic, you increase the risk someone will summon an angry twitter mob to attack you.
Overall … it’s probably worth noticing people like you strong downvoting my comment (now at karma 5, yours at 12) are the side actually trying to silence the critic here, while agreement with “it is surprising that some of Carla Zoe Kremer’s reforms haven’t been implemented”or vague criticisms of “EA leadership” are what’s in vogue on EA forum now.
I don’t think (almost) anyone is trying to silence you here; the agreevotes on your top comment are pretty high and I’d expect a silencing campaign to target both. That suggests to me that the votes are likely due to what some perceive as an uncharitable tone toward Zoe, or possibly a belief that having the then-top comment be one that focuses heavily on Zoe’s self-portrayal in the media risks derailing discussion of the original poster’s main points (Zoe’s potential involvement being a subpoint to a subpoint).
I strongly downvoted this for not making any of the reasoning transparent and thus contributing little to the discussion beyond stating that “Jan believes this”.
This could sometimes be reasonable for the purpose of deferring to authority, but that is riskier in this case because Jan has severe conflicts of interest due to being employed by a core EA organisation and being a stakeholder in for example a ~$4.7 million grant to buy a chateau.
When the discussion is roughly at the level ‘seem to me obviously worth doing ’ it seem to me fine to state dissent of the form ‘often seems bad or not working to me’.
Stating an opinion is not ‘appeal to authority’. I think in many cases it’s useful to know what people believe, and if I have to choose between a forum where people state their beliefs openly and more often, and a forum, where people state beliefs only when they are willing to write a long and detailed justification, I prefer the first.
I’m curious in which direction you think the supposed ‘conflict of interests’ point:
I’m employed at the same institution (FHI) as Zoe works, and we were part of the same RSP program (although in different cohorts). This mostly creates some incentive to not criticize Zoe’s ideas publicly and would preclude me from e.g. reviewing Zoe’s papers, because of favourable bias.
Also … I think while being a stakeholder in a grant to buy a cheap and cost-saving events venue has not much to do with the topics in question, it mostly creates some incentive to be silent, because by engaging critically with the topic, you increase the risk someone will summon an angry twitter mob to attack you.
Overall … it’s probably worth noticing people like you strong downvoting my comment (now at karma 5, yours at 12) are the side actually trying to silence the critic here, while agreement with “it is surprising that some of Carla Zoe Kremer’s reforms haven’t been implemented”or vague criticisms of “EA leadership” are what’s in vogue on EA forum now.
I don’t think (almost) anyone is trying to silence you here; the agreevotes on your top comment are pretty high and I’d expect a silencing campaign to target both. That suggests to me that the votes are likely due to what some perceive as an uncharitable tone toward Zoe, or possibly a belief that having the then-top comment be one that focuses heavily on Zoe’s self-portrayal in the media risks derailing discussion of the original poster’s main points (Zoe’s potential involvement being a subpoint to a subpoint).
I disagree with Jan here entirely, but also with you.
First of all, I don’t see what the problem is with commenting one’s opinion; “Reasoning transparency” is a thing that’s only sometimes appropriate.
Second, I wouldn’t call FHI a “core EA organisation” and I frankly don’t see the conflict of interest at all.