On point 4, I wonder if more EAs should use Twitter. There are certainly many options to do more “ruthless” communication there, and it might be a good way to spread and popularize ideas. In any case it’s a pretty concrete example of where fidelity vs. popularity and niceness vs. aggressive promotion trade off.
Keep in mind that Twitter users are a non-representative sample of the population… Please don’t accept kbog’s proposed deal with the devil in order to become popular in Twitter’s malign memetic ecosystem.
Absolutely, EAs shouldn’t be toxic, inaccurate, or uncharitable on Twitter or anywhere else. But I’ve seen a few examples of people effectively communicating about EA issues on Twitter, such as Julia Galef and Kelsey Piper, at a level of fidelity and niceness far above the average for that website. On the other hand they are briefer, more flippant, and spend more time responding to critics outside the community than they would on other platforms.
Yep, though I think it takes a while to learn how to tweet, whom to follow, and whom to tweet at before you can get a consistently good experience on Twitter and avoid the nastiness and misunderstandings it’s infamous for.
There’s a bit of an extended universe of Vox writers, economists, and “neoliberals” that are interested in EA and sometimes tweet about it, and I think it would be potentially valuable to add some people who are more knowledgeable about EA into the mix.
On point 4, I wonder if more EAs should use Twitter. There are certainly many options to do more “ruthless” communication there, and it might be a good way to spread and popularize ideas. In any case it’s a pretty concrete example of where fidelity vs. popularity and niceness vs. aggressive promotion trade off.
Keep in mind that Twitter users are a non-representative sample of the population… Please don’t accept kbog’s proposed deal with the devil in order to become popular in Twitter’s malign memetic ecosystem.
Absolutely, EAs shouldn’t be toxic, inaccurate, or uncharitable on Twitter or anywhere else. But I’ve seen a few examples of people effectively communicating about EA issues on Twitter, such as Julia Galef and Kelsey Piper, at a level of fidelity and niceness far above the average for that website. On the other hand they are briefer, more flippant, and spend more time responding to critics outside the community than they would on other platforms.
I’ve recently started experimenting with that, I think it’s good. And Twitter really is not as bad a website as people often think.
Yep, though I think it takes a while to learn how to tweet, whom to follow, and whom to tweet at before you can get a consistently good experience on Twitter and avoid the nastiness and misunderstandings it’s infamous for.
There’s a bit of an extended universe of Vox writers, economists, and “neoliberals” that are interested in EA and sometimes tweet about it, and I think it would be potentially valuable to add some people who are more knowledgeable about EA into the mix.