What do you think a better way of writing would have been?
Just flagging uncertainties more clearly or clarifying when he is talking about his subjective impressions?
Also, while that doesn’t invalidate your criticism, I always read the most important century as something like “Holden describes in one piece why he thinks we are potentially in a very important time. It’s hard to define what that means exactly but we all kind of get the intention. The arguments about AI are hard to precisely make because we don’t really understand AI and its implications yet but the piece puts the current evidence together so that we get slightly less confused.”
I explicitly read the piece NOT as something that would be written in academic analytical philosophy and much more as something that points to this really big thing we currently can’t articulate precisely but all agree is important.
I don’t really understand the response of asking me what I would have done. I would find it very tricky to put myself in the position of someone who is writing the posts but who also thinks what I have said I think.
Otherwise, I don’t think you’re making unreasonable points, but I do think that in the piece itself I already tried to directly address much of what you’re saying.
Ie You talk about his ideas being hard to define or hard to precisely explain but that we all kind of get the intention. Among other things, I write about how his vagueness allows him to lump together many versions of his claims under one heading, which hides the true level of disagreement and uncertainty that is likely to exist about any particular precise version of a claim. And about how it means he can focus on persuading you (-and potentially persuading you to act or donate etc) above figuring out what’s true. Etc
(It feels weird to me to have to repeat that we should be skeptical of—or at least very careful with—ideas/arguments that seem to continue to be “hard to explain” but that “we all kinda get what we mean”.)
And I don’t expect to actually be written like analytic philosophy either: eg one of my points here is that it isn’t reasonable to suppose that he is unaware of the standards of academic philosophy and so it doesn’t feel right for him to suggest that he is using a high level of rigour etc
What do you think a better way of writing would have been?
Just flagging uncertainties more clearly or clarifying when he is talking about his subjective impressions?
Also, while that doesn’t invalidate your criticism, I always read the most important century as something like “Holden describes in one piece why he thinks we are potentially in a very important time. It’s hard to define what that means exactly but we all kind of get the intention. The arguments about AI are hard to precisely make because we don’t really understand AI and its implications yet but the piece puts the current evidence together so that we get slightly less confused.”
I explicitly read the piece NOT as something that would be written in academic analytical philosophy and much more as something that points to this really big thing we currently can’t articulate precisely but all agree is important.
I don’t really understand the response of asking me what I would have done. I would find it very tricky to put myself in the position of someone who is writing the posts but who also thinks what I have said I think.
Otherwise, I don’t think you’re making unreasonable points, but I do think that in the piece itself I already tried to directly address much of what you’re saying.
Ie You talk about his ideas being hard to define or hard to precisely explain but that we all kind of get the intention. Among other things, I write about how his vagueness allows him to lump together many versions of his claims under one heading, which hides the true level of disagreement and uncertainty that is likely to exist about any particular precise version of a claim. And about how it means he can focus on persuading you (-and potentially persuading you to act or donate etc) above figuring out what’s true. Etc
(It feels weird to me to have to repeat that we should be skeptical of—or at least very careful with—ideas/arguments that seem to continue to be “hard to explain” but that “we all kinda get what we mean”.)
And I don’t expect to actually be written like analytic philosophy either: eg one of my points here is that it isn’t reasonable to suppose that he is unaware of the standards of academic philosophy and so it doesn’t feel right for him to suggest that he is using a high level of rigour etc