Hey. Thanks for pointing these out and we appreciate your engagement with our work! I’m not the original author, though I did help review and evaluate this research at Rethink Priorities.
We received feedback from many experts at the time, and didn’t run into any issues with people not taking us seriously. I also think the details you mentioned, while important, don’t do much to undermine our reports’ various bottom-line conclusions. Unfortunately we often lack time to properly vet every detail, but we’re very happy to have our errors pointed out and correct our posts.
Also I do generally think the dynamic you describe can be a concerning one. There is a tricky balance to start between bringing a new perspective to a space you’ve never worked in before vs. spending a lot of time on deep solicitation from experts. I think that there can be a lot of value from someone outside a field coming in and evaluating something from a new angle, but it comes with all of the downsides you list. Now at Rethink Priorities we encourage our staff more to take time to build expertise, and that we’re less pressured to produce fast output, relative to when this post was published.
I think my point should have been phrased less as “people will definitely not take you seriously” and more as “people might not take you seriously”. If I was looking for a reason to toss something, the sort of errors here would provide excellent ammo.
More broadly, I’m glad that you guys are trying to address this. I do think that defense is particularly tricky, for reasons I’m still trying to write up, but I also don’t have the expertise to critique other areas.
Hey. Thanks for pointing these out and we appreciate your engagement with our work! I’m not the original author, though I did help review and evaluate this research at Rethink Priorities.
We received feedback from many experts at the time, and didn’t run into any issues with people not taking us seriously. I also think the details you mentioned, while important, don’t do much to undermine our reports’ various bottom-line conclusions. Unfortunately we often lack time to properly vet every detail, but we’re very happy to have our errors pointed out and correct our posts.
Also I do generally think the dynamic you describe can be a concerning one. There is a tricky balance to start between bringing a new perspective to a space you’ve never worked in before vs. spending a lot of time on deep solicitation from experts. I think that there can be a lot of value from someone outside a field coming in and evaluating something from a new angle, but it comes with all of the downsides you list. Now at Rethink Priorities we encourage our staff more to take time to build expertise, and that we’re less pressured to produce fast output, relative to when this post was published.
I think my point should have been phrased less as “people will definitely not take you seriously” and more as “people might not take you seriously”. If I was looking for a reason to toss something, the sort of errors here would provide excellent ammo.
More broadly, I’m glad that you guys are trying to address this. I do think that defense is particularly tricky, for reasons I’m still trying to write up, but I also don’t have the expertise to critique other areas.