Morale is low right now and senior EA figures are occupied and some have come under direct criticism, whether justified or not. In this environment, it’s difficult to communicate or express leadership. Only the CEA community health team seems to be taking the initiative, which must be very difficult and this is heroic.
In this situation there is often gardening of the online space that tends to be performed by marginal actors. LW and MIRI has been left mostly unscathed by the FTX disaster, and now, Eliezer and Rob B (professional communicator employed by MIRI) are highly active. In the sense of advancing their cause, that’s OK and natural. They are also helpful in tempering gardening attempts by other actors.
Note that I don’t think Eliezer’s representations, such downplaying his interactions with FTX (he might have been a regrantor and was probably more actively jockeying/seeking money than it seems, which is understandable) and other statements are entirely truthful or disinterested.
More importantly, the low opinion of Eliezer’s contributions is well known, relevant and should be communicated. (The quality of his output and MIRI was considered low, which is why they received relatively little funding and were unscathed[1]).
The fact they were not funded by a bad person is not a sign of virtue or quality, to say this in “LW speak”, see Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence.
As of writing, I want to point out that Eliezer’s comments, which are a probably strained digression to explain his original comment (and include speculation of a voting ring against him ???), has the following vote score.
My comments below this have:
This is not only not justifiable by content, this is literally suppressing criticism of a promoted EA figure on the EA forum.
Perhaps the ditch the “Your intellectual contributions are poorly regarded” thread; at best, it is unsupported & off-topic
Morale is low right now and senior EA figures are occupied and some have come under direct criticism, whether justified or not. In this environment, it’s difficult to communicate or express leadership. Only the CEA community health team seems to be taking the initiative, which must be very difficult and this is heroic.
In this situation there is often gardening of the online space that tends to be performed by marginal actors. LW and MIRI has been left mostly unscathed by the FTX disaster, and now, Eliezer and Rob B (professional communicator employed by MIRI) are highly active. In the sense of advancing their cause, that’s OK and natural. They are also helpful in tempering gardening attempts by other actors.
Note that I don’t think Eliezer’s representations, such downplaying his interactions with FTX (he might have been a regrantor and was probably more actively jockeying/seeking money than it seems, which is understandable) and other statements are entirely truthful or disinterested.
More importantly, the low opinion of Eliezer’s contributions is well known, relevant and should be communicated. (The quality of his output and MIRI was considered low, which is why they received relatively little funding and were unscathed[1]).
The fact they were not funded by a bad person is not a sign of virtue or quality, to say this in “LW speak”, see Reversed Stupidity Is Not Intelligence.
I think this was downvoted in the first 10 seconds, I am bumping this so this gets read.
As of writing, I want to point out that Eliezer’s comments, which are a probably strained digression to explain his original comment (and include speculation of a voting ring against him ???), has the following vote score.
My comments below this have:
This is not only not justifiable by content, this is literally suppressing criticism of a promoted EA figure on the EA forum.