Yeah, I donāt particularly mind this letter (though I see a lot more value in the critiques from Nielsen, NunoSempere, and Benjamin Ross Hoffman). Iām largely reacting to your positive annotated comments about the WIRED piece.
That said, I really donāt think Wenar is (even close to) āsubstantively correctā on his āshare of the totalā argument. The context is debating how much good EA-inspired donations have done. He seems to think the answer should be discounted by all the other (non-EA?) people involved in the causal chain, or that maybe only the final step should count (!?). Thatās silly. The relevant question is counterfactual. When co-ordinating with others, you might want to assess a collective counterfactual rather than an individual counterfactual, to avoid double-counting (I take it that something along these lines is your intended steelman?); but that seems pretty distant from Wenarās confused reasoning about the impact of philanthropic donations.
I agree that Wenarās reasoning on this is confused, and that he doesnāt have a clear idea of how itās supposed to work.
I do think that heās in some reasonable way gesturing at the core issue, even if he doesnāt say very sensible things about how to address that issue.
Thanks for the link. (Iād much rather people read that than Wenarās confused thoughts.)
Hereās the bit I take to represent the ācore issueā:
If everyone thinks in terms of something like āapproximate shares of moral creditā, then this can help in coordinating to avoid situations where a lot of people work on a project because it seems worth it on marginal impact, but it would have been better if theyād all done something different.
Can you point to textual evidence that Wenar is actually gesturing at anything remotely in this vicinity? The alternative interpretation (which I think is better supported by the actual text) is that heās (i) conceptually confused about moral credit in a way that is deeply unreasonable, (ii) thinking about how to discredit EA, not how to optimize coordination, and (iii) simply happened to say something that vaguely reminds you of your own, much more reasonable, take.
If Iām right about (i)-(iii), then I donāt think itās accurate to characterize him as āin some reasonable way gesturing at the core issue.ā
I guess I think itās likely some middle ground? I donāt think he has a clear conceptual understanding of moral credit, but I do think heās tuning in to ways in which EA claims may be exaggerating the impact people can have. I find it quite easy to believe thatās motivated by some desire to make EA look badābut so what? If people who want to make EA look bad make for good researchers hunting for (potentially-substantive) issues, so much the better.
Yeah, I donāt particularly mind this letter (though I see a lot more value in the critiques from Nielsen, NunoSempere, and Benjamin Ross Hoffman). Iām largely reacting to your positive annotated comments about the WIRED piece.
That said, I really donāt think Wenar is (even close to) āsubstantively correctā on his āshare of the totalā argument. The context is debating how much good EA-inspired donations have done. He seems to think the answer should be discounted by all the other (non-EA?) people involved in the causal chain, or that maybe only the final step should count (!?). Thatās silly. The relevant question is counterfactual. When co-ordinating with others, you might want to assess a collective counterfactual rather than an individual counterfactual, to avoid double-counting (I take it that something along these lines is your intended steelman?); but that seems pretty distant from Wenarās confused reasoning about the impact of philanthropic donations.
I agree that Wenarās reasoning on this is confused, and that he doesnāt have a clear idea of how itās supposed to work.
I do think that heās in some reasonable way gesturing at the core issue, even if he doesnāt say very sensible things about how to address that issue.
And yeah, thatās the rough shape of the steelman position I have in mind. I wrote a little about my takes here; sorry Iāve not got anything more comprehensive: https://āāforum.effectivealtruism.org/āāposts/āārWoT7mABXTfkCdHvr/āājp-s-shortform?commentId=ArPTtZQbngqJ6KSMo
Thanks for the link. (Iād much rather people read that than Wenarās confused thoughts.)
Hereās the bit I take to represent the ācore issueā:
Can you point to textual evidence that Wenar is actually gesturing at anything remotely in this vicinity? The alternative interpretation (which I think is better supported by the actual text) is that heās (i) conceptually confused about moral credit in a way that is deeply unreasonable, (ii) thinking about how to discredit EA, not how to optimize coordination, and (iii) simply happened to say something that vaguely reminds you of your own, much more reasonable, take.
If Iām right about (i)-(iii), then I donāt think itās accurate to characterize him as āin some reasonable way gesturing at the core issue.ā
I guess I think itās likely some middle ground? I donāt think he has a clear conceptual understanding of moral credit, but I do think heās tuning in to ways in which EA claims may be exaggerating the impact people can have. I find it quite easy to believe thatās motivated by some desire to make EA look badābut so what? If people who want to make EA look bad make for good researchers hunting for (potentially-substantive) issues, so much the better.