In the second half of your comment, your analysis of the conversation, you claim that I’ve been doing something repeatedly. I think you are taking an excerpt and accidentally engaged in a motte-and-bailey—and given that the conversation took place over weeks, I assume that was because you didn’t go back and trace the entire thread. But I want to make this clearer, because I think my claims were misread.
Initially, you said of the criticism, “that also applies to people working on global development as well, and to pretty much all philanthropy.” I then agreed that “each [area] should be interested in outside feedback about whether it seems racist, or fail on other counts.” You replied that my criticism was “specific to longtermism… [but it] also applies to all social movements” I responded that “no-one is really providing this specific bit of outside feedback to most of those groups.” (And I will note that your claims until here are about “all philanthropy” and “all social movements,” no longer referring to just global development.) You said “there are also attacks on all global development charity for being colonialist.” (I disagree—there were, especially decades ago, but,) I responded, “global development has spent a huge amount of time and effort addressing the reasonable criticisms of colonialism… saying that global development is also attacked, as if that means longtermists couldn’t be similarly guilty, seems like a very, very strange defense.”
So I said everyone receiving the criticism should take it seriously. You said everyone (motte) in philanthropy is criticised in this was. I said *most of those groups* are not. You replied that global development (bailey) was criticised. I agreed—but again, pointed out that that was quite a while ago, and they have addressed the issues, i.e. did what I said EA should do. So I admitted that your bailey was correct—that an example which is not “all social movements” or “most groups” was criticised, and did the thing I said EA should do. And I’ll point out that you never went back and addressed the motte you first claimed, that it is a universal fact. Finally, “[I] then characterise [you] as “saying that global development is also attacked, as if that means longtermists couldn’t be similarly guilty.” And yes, that seems to encapsulate my point exactly.
In the second half of your comment, your analysis of the conversation, you claim that I’ve been doing something repeatedly. I think you are taking an excerpt and accidentally engaged in a motte-and-bailey—and given that the conversation took place over weeks, I assume that was because you didn’t go back and trace the entire thread. But I want to make this clearer, because I think my claims were misread.
Initially, you said of the criticism, “that also applies to people working on global development as well, and to pretty much all philanthropy.”
I then agreed that “each [area] should be interested in outside feedback about whether it seems racist, or fail on other counts.”
You replied that my criticism was “specific to longtermism… [but it] also applies to all social movements”
I responded that “no-one is really providing this specific bit of outside feedback to most of those groups.” (And I will note that your claims until here are about “all philanthropy” and “all social movements,” no longer referring to just global development.)
You said “there are also attacks on all global development charity for being colonialist.” (I disagree—there were, especially decades ago, but,)
I responded, “global development has spent a huge amount of time and effort addressing the reasonable criticisms of colonialism… saying that global development is also attacked, as if that means longtermists couldn’t be similarly guilty, seems like a very, very strange defense.”
So I said everyone receiving the criticism should take it seriously. You said everyone (motte) in philanthropy is criticised in this was. I said *most of those groups* are not. You replied that global development (bailey) was criticised. I agreed—but again, pointed out that that was quite a while ago, and they have addressed the issues, i.e. did what I said EA should do. So I admitted that your bailey was correct—that an example which is not “all social movements” or “most groups” was criticised, and did the thing I said EA should do. And I’ll point out that you never went back and addressed the motte you first claimed, that it is a universal fact. Finally, “[I] then characterise [you] as “saying that global development is also attacked, as if that means longtermists couldn’t be similarly guilty.” And yes, that seems to encapsulate my point exactly.