“it can cause us to go awry if it means we don’t take chances of upside seriously, or when we focus our concern on false positives rather than false negatives”
I’ve encountered this problem repeatedly in my attempts to speak with EAs here in the East Bay. With one topic, for example, I can napkin the numbers for them: $5 Trillion in real estate impacted by hurricanes, in US alone—so, there’s on-the-order-of a $1 Trillion wealth-effect if we can stop hurricanes. A proposal with a 1:1,000 chance of doing so would still be worth $1 Billion-ish to check for feasibility. Just running a simulation to get a sanity-check. Yet?
EAs are “busy coordinating retreats, so I don’t have time to help connect you to someone for a new project.” I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it. They’re also the ones who can negotiate with all those countries; a charity would fail, there. As I said in my EA Forum post on the topic, six months ago: I am looking for people to have a conversation. I expect that any particular individual would not be able to help, so I hope that each of the people listening would instead ask their own circle—in just two or three steps, that social network can reach almost anyone. The EAs are consistently reticent, wondering instead if I want funding, or if I am trying to get hired by them.
This is indicative of a pattern:
EAs have formats for dialogue which each serve certain needs well—the EA Forum, Slack, Conferences, Retreats, and local gatherings. Unfortunately, a vital format is missing from that list: the 1 to 2 hour, 2 to 5 person in-depth discussion, which includes people from outside that particular academic clique of sub-causes. I keep requesting this format, and I am told to “go to the Forum, or Slack”, where I have been waiting months for any response, now.
Reading your comments on that post, it sounds like you were hoping readers would respond to your post by making things happen. That’s occasionally the way things go, but almost always if you want to move something along you need to drive it. For example, if you think this is possibly one of the most important things to do you could consider:
Seeking funding to work on this full-time. With your full time work you could learn how to run a simulation, or attempt to convince the government to run one. You could also explore related hurricane prevention proposals (for example, Myhrvold’s proposal) .
Seeking funding to hire someone to work on this full-time (but if you aren’t willing to do it I expect funders to consider that a negative signal)
Actively looking for collaborators, for example by attempting to identify relevant academics
Just to note for the next person: I am now being called “powerless and vulnerable” because I stand against being mis-represented. I have been mis-represented repeatedly, and so I have responded to each—yet, the fact that I “repeatedly post (complaints about being misrepresented)… makes sure that not many people take (me) seriously.” If your clique repeatedly mis-represents me, and then they use my own self-defense as a reason to justify exclusion, you’ve earned the title of clique!
I’m going to be honest. I think you’d have a better experience here if you engaged with people in a way that was less adversarial. I can understand why you might be frustrated that people didn’t engage more with your ideas or that people misinterpreted what you wrote, but it seems to me that you’re currently in a cycle where you felt you were mistreated or ignored which leads you to send out negative energy which then results in further negative interactions; and hence the cycle continues.
For some reason, my original response is not showing up. I definitely did NOT make any attack on anyone, during my comment. I don’t see why it would be deleted—I request a review of whoever deleted my response. Here it is, again:
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
Further, again, I am not talking about “lack of engagaement”—ONLY your people have made that claim, and I dismiss it each time you’ve made it. I continue to point-out: I have been repeatedly misrepresented. I deserve an apology.
More to the point: why is my tone the more pressing issue, compared to the fact that I’ve been repeatedly misrepresented? Your Us/Them priorities are showing.
I think the biggest reason why your tone is relevant here is that you are seeking introductions to potential collaborators. People care a lot about what others are like to work with!
I agree! So, consider the scenario: I stand-up and ask “does anyone know someone I might talk to?” and the response I get is “but we don’t want to give you money”. I correct that misrepresentation, repeatedly, until I suspect that I am being trolled—and my self-defense is used as a reason to ignore me. If I hadn’t been poked-in-the-eye repeatedly, those introductions would begin on a pleasant footing.
Core to this problem: each of you are focusing on how I can “get better results by playing nice”. I am focusing on “I was misrepresented, and that should be considered first, in the moral calculus.” If I roll-over every time someone bullies me, then I’ll be liked by a whole lot of bullies. That doesn’t sound like a win, to me.
I honestly think this is the one thing I could have said that could have helped you achieve your goals the most, more than offering a connection to a relevant person, if I actually knew someone interested in hurricane prevention.
I suppose what you’re saying makes sense from where you stand. I guess I’m trying to show you another way of seeing the world, even though I know it won’t make sense from your perspective. I’d encourage you to imagine briefly what it would mean for this to be true, to explore what the world looks like through this lens, and its internal logic. I suspect that this exercise could be valuable even if you don’t end up agreeing with this perspective.
When did you edit your response? You were saying something else, originally...
Yes, I can imagine the world where I respond to the misrepresentations with politeness—I did that for twenty years, and the misrepresentations continued, along with so many other forms of bullying. I have seen the world from that lens, and I learned that it’s better for me to stand-up to misrepresentations, even if that means the bully doesn’t like me.
Maybe I should have been clearer. I’m asking you to imagine the world where everyone isn’t intrinsically against you, they’ve tried to help and they’ve been pushed away. I know that’s a difficult ask, but I suspect it would be worthwhile.
Strong downvote for extreme and inappropriate condescension in the guise of helping someone. There is no adequate reason for you to assume that Anthony is living in a world where everyone is intrinsically against him, and that he cannot even imagine not living in a different world. This is an extremely strong statement to make about someone you know through a few online comments. Why do you think you’re right?
Even if you were right, helping him would not take the form of trying to point this out publicly in such a tactless way.
I can see why you might think it’s a guise, but it really isn’t the case. I think you’re correct that it does come off as slightly condescending, but this isn’t intentional. I’m trying to expand the range of what I can say without coming off as condescending, but for there are some things where I find it challenging; where it feels to me like trying to thread a needle. In any case, your comment contains useful feedback.
I just want to make it clear that it’s a genuine attempt to say the most helpful thing that I can, even if I think it only has a small chance of making a difference, but I agree that a private message might have been better. As for why I think this what I think, it’s mostly based on my experience of dealing with people. I could produce some explicit reasons if I really wanted to, but I’m not sure if it’s worthwhile given that they are more the sideshow than anything.
Thanks, this is a good followup. I’m glad my comment contained useful feedback for you.
I think your attempt to help Anthony went awry when he asked you why his tone was the bigger issue than whether he had been misrepresented, and you did not even seem to consider that he could be right in your reply. Perhaps he is right? Perhaps not? But it’s important to at least genuinely consider that he could be.
Thank you for recognizing that my concern was not addressed. I should mention, I am also not operating from an assumption of ‘intrinsically against me’ - it’s an unusually specific reaction that I’ve received on this forum, in particular. So, I’m glad that you have spoken-up in favor of due consideration. My stomach knots thank you :)
I don’t feel good about this situation, but I think your judgement is really different than most reads of what happened:
It’s clear to me that there’s someone who isn’t communicating or creating beliefs in a way that would be workable. Chris Leong’s comments seem objectively correct (if not likely to be useful).
(While committing this sin with this comment itself) It’s clearly better to walk away and leave them alone than risk stirring up another round of issues.
My comment very well may not be useful. I think there’s value in experimenting with different ways of engaging with people. I think it is possible to have these kind of conversations but I don’t think that I’ve quite managed to figure out how to do that yet.
I think the person involved is either having a specific negative personal incident, or revealing latent personality traits that suggest the situation is much less promising and below a reasonable bar for skilled intervention in a conversation.
With an willingness to be wrong and ignore norms, I think I could elaborate or make informative comments (maybe relevant of trust, scaling and dilution that seem to be major topics right now?). But it feels distasteful and inhumane to do this to one individual who is not an EA.
(I think EAs can and should endure much more, directly and publicly, and this seems like it would address would be problems with trust and scaling).
It seems someone is deleting my posts, when I have not said anything in those posts except my own self-defense and what has been done to me. Here it is, again:
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
Thank you for the clarification. It’s still worrisome that a subset, by downvoting, can ensure that my correction of their misrepresentation goes un-noticed, while their misrepresentation of me stands in full view. There was another post on the Forum, recently, talking about how outsiders worry that EA is a cult or a clique—I hope you can see where that concern is coming from, when my self-defense is downvoted to obscurity, while the misrepresentations stand.
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
I am not looking for funding—I asked if anyone is interested in running those simulations, or knows someone they could put me in touch with.
I quote from my post directly above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
I’m appalled that multiple times, here now and when I posted originally, after stating that I am NOT seeking funding, I am repeatedly misrepresented as “seeking funding”. It’s a basic respect to read what I actually wrote.
Included in my hope for connections are the relevant academics—I began my search at the EA Berkeley campus chapter. I know that the government would not listen to me without at least a first-pass simulation of my own; and I know that it is ludicrous for me to invest time into developing a skill that others possess, or re-inventing the wheel by making my own simulation. Those are all significantly more wasteful and ineffectual than asking people if they know anyone in related fields—this is because social networks are dense graphs, so only two or three steps away, I am likely to find an appropriate specialist. Your advice is not appropriate.
At no point did I ask the readers to do the work of simulation, or proposing to the government, on my behalf; you used a strawman against me. I am specifically asking if people can look in their social network for anyone with relevant skill-sets, who I might talk to—those skilled folks are the place where I’m likely to find someone who would actually do work, not here on the forums with a string of dismissive ‘help’ and fallacies.
I can think of two main reasons why your posts haven’t resulted in introductions to relevant specialists:
People with those connections haven’t seen your posts.
While such people have seen your posts they don’t consider this opportunity sufficiently promising to pass it on.
While many people do read the Forum it wouldn’t be surprising if no one had seen your post who knew anyone relevant, since there aren’t that many relevant experts. And even if they are, when you give someone an introduction you are staking some of your social capital, and based on your initial post and comments here I would not, personally, be willing to stake such capital.
I had seen that you’d written that you weren’t looking for funding, and my post above doesn’t suggest that you were. Instead, I was suggesting that you do and giving ideas on how you might use funding to make progress on this project. After reading your responses here, however, I withdraw that suggestion.
I apologize for lumping your funding-suggestion along-side others’ funding-misrepresentation. I see that you are looking for ways to make it possible, and funding is what came to mind. Thank you.
(I am still surprised that funding is continually the first topic, after I specify that the government is the best institution to finance such a project. EA would go bankrupt, if they tried to stop hurricanes...)
And, I understand if people don’t consider my proposal promising—I am not demanding that they divert resources, especially funds which are best spent on highest guaranteed impact! Yet, there is a cliquishness in excluding diverse dialogue based upon “social capital/reputation”—I hope you can see that the social graph’s connectivity falls apart when we cut those ties.
It’s also odd that the only data-point used to evaluate me would be the slice of time immediately after I’d been prodded repeatedly. I wish I could hand you the video-tapes of my life, and let you evaluate me rightly. When I am repeatedly misrepresented, defending myself, then you don’t see a representative slice of who I am.
Worst of all, no measure of my persona or character is a measure of the worth of a thought. If I am not a good fit for making it happen, then the best I can do I find someone who fits that well. The idea itself stands or falls on its own merits, and measuring me ignores that. I won’t know if it’s worth doing until I have a simulation, at least. I don’t know how anyone else has certainty on the matter, especially from such a noisy proxy as “perceived tone via text message”.
I am still surprised that funding is continually the first topic, after I specify that the government is the best institution to finance such a project. EA would go bankrupt, if they tried to stop hurricanes...
The reason I brought up funding was not that I thought it might make sense for EAs to fund the entire thing, but that it might allow you to address the reasons your proposal is currently stalled. I gave a few ideas of specific things you might do with funding:
Free up your time to learn how to run a simulation.
Yes, I understand that funding can let me hire people to do that work—and I don’t need funding to free my time. I understand that, if I delay for the sake of doing-it-alone, then I am responsible for that additional harm. It doesn’t make sense for me to run a simulation or lobby by myself; and I’ve been in the position of hiring people, as well as working with people who are internally motivated. I hoped to find the internally motivated people, first—that’s why I asked EA for connections, instead of just posting something on a job site.
You espouse a bizarre cliquishness, by your claim. Look at the outcome it generates: you fail to hear new information from outside your bubble. Your claim does not become virtuous or correct, nor does it facilitate progress—you’re just claiming it to feel right.
(Here is a brutal answer but maybe helpful at this point.)
I haven’t read every comment of yours but my sense is that you are frustrated that no one has engaged with your idea.
One issue with this sentiment is that there is little or nothing in EA that is like “a fully general engine” for taking someone’s paragraphs of thoughts and executing on it. (This isn’t true but complicated/political to explain).
EA provides a lot of resources, but this takes some leg work and demonstration to get going. This price of entry is a good thing. There is a lot of horsepower and leadership needed to execute even a pretty obvious appearing project that could almost immediately get seed or exploratory funding.
An example is the snakebite post which seems like a great potential project. But even this project’s execution is uncertain.
To be concrete, you can come up with substantially more progress and much more substantial and credible work and no one needs to provide this for you. In fact it’s much much better you do it yourself at least in a first stage if you want your project to succeed.
(I think the above is brutal but maybe helpful. The below is brutal and probably unhelpful but it’s useful for onlookers).
There is a large supply of people who have ideas or public complaints that don’t seem to achieve progress.
When examined, the underlying issue often isn’t related with their idea in principle.
The reality is that many patterns of forum use or complaints indicate lack of effectiveness (or distinctly, telegraph a sense of powerlessness and sometimes vulnerability). So their repeatedly posting is sort of an anti pattern that makes sure not many people take them seriously.
I am frustrated that I am repeatedly misrepresented, which is what I said in my responses. I am not frustrated by a lack of “people doing leg work for me”. I am specifically asking if anyone has connections toward the relevant specialists, so that I can talk to those specialists. I’m not sure why that would be “something I should do on my own”—I’m literally reaching out to gather specialists, which is the first leg work, obviously. Re-inventing the wheel to impress an audience by “going it alone” is actually counter-productive.
I don’t need a “fully general engine”—you are misrepresenting my request, as others have. I am asking if anyone knows someone with the relevant background. I am NOT asking for funding, nor a general protocol that addresses every post. Those are strawmen. No one has apologized for these strawmen; they just ghost the conversation.
And, if you are using the fact that I stood-up to repeated mis-representations as “telegraph a sense of powerlessness and sometimes vulnerability”, and as a result, I should not be taken seriously, then you are squashing the only means of recourse available to me. When my request is repeatedly mis-represented, and I respond to each of them, I am necessarily “repeatedly posting”—I’m not sure why that noisy proxy for “lack of effectiveness” is a better signal for you than actually reading what I wrote.
You’ve responded with hostility and intense frustration to Linch and Khorton, who are goofy, but well meaning people. That’s really bad and you should stop writing like this. (EDIT: also Jeff Kaufman).
(Note that I suspect there something unseemly about my personal conduct in replying to you. To myself, in my head, I think I am doing it because it provides useful information to onlookers, because this would be mansplaining in other circumstances. I need to think about this.)
The brutal truth is that “specialist” access is sort of like gold. I and most people wouldn’t give someone with this account access to any specialists because this is unpromising but also because these relationships are valuable and reflect on them.
Separately, I think hard, esoteric projects in EA deserve real seed or exploratory funding. I am not really following to be honest, but the fact that you have this thread about misrepresentation might be because there is some underlying issue you don’t understand this or how projects are executed.
It’s also telling that, though I pointed-out how you sought to use “repeated posting” as a proxy for my “powerlessness and vulnerability...lack of effectiveness”, you made no mention of it, afterwards. Judging someone on such shallow evidence is the opposite of skeptical inquiry; it doesn’t bode well for your own effectiveness. Am I being hostile when I say that to you, while you are NOT hostile, when you say it to me, first?
When I am repeatedly misrepresented, and no one who does so responds with an apology, I am supposed to adhere to your standards of dialogue? Why are my standards not respected, first?
If specialist access is gold, then what do I need to pay them? I’ll figure funding separately—who, and how much?
Exploratory work is great—yet, as Jeff was saying in this exact thread’s original post—EA needs to be willing to take the leap on risky new ideas. That was, also, the part of his post that I quoted, in my original response. Do you see how they are related to what we are talking about? Perhaps EA should take a risk, and connect me to a specialist, and if EA thinks that specialist should be paid, I’ll work that out, next.
Have you talked to Sella Nevo, who does flood prediction at Google?
My own hot take here is that if you spent 1 billion dollars of EA money to save the US gov’t 1 trillion dollars, you’ve likely wasted >900 million dollars. But I know other people are more optimistic about US gov’t funding priorities (or more pessimistic about EA uses of money).
I quote from above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
I’m NOT asking to use EA money—I repeatedly clarify that, at every opportunity, and yet it is insisted-up multiple times, on this forum. No, EA only has $30B, so you can’t afford stopping hurricanes, even if you spent your entire budget. I pointed to the potential value of looking for solutions at $1B, which is the actual expected-value, NOT the ‘value to EA’. I’m not trying to take ANY dollars from your charities. Do you hear that, yet? I don’t appreciate being repeatedly misrepresented and strawmanned.
Are you suggesting that I cold-call Sella Nevo? Do you have a way to put me in touch, so that I am not ignored, as I have been here?
I did not say you were looking for funding. I am sorry to the degree I am responsible for miscommunication, or if I unintentionally upset you in any way. I am always trying to be better at communication. I hope you have a good day.
Upvoted for the last three sentences, but I believe your first sentence is incorrect. The second paragraph of your initial comment does not make sense to me in the absence of you believing that Anthony was looking for funding.
I was not intentionally suggesting that Anthony was asking for a billion dollars in funding. It’s strange to me that >=2 people will read my comment that way. I’m again sorry for any miscommunication.
I don’t think it’s prudent for me to engage further in this thread, even though this type of thing naturally draws me in. I will donate $10 to Homeopaths Without Borders if I comment further.
My read on your comment is that you misread Anthony’s allusion to $1b as about potentially spending $1b at some stage (whether right now or later), rather than about the expected impact of his idea. I could be wrong, but that’s the only way your comment makes sense to me (“if you spent $1b of EA money”—what could this refer to besides spending $1b of money?).
Anthony is asking for connection to someone who is skilled at running a particular kind of simulation to see if his idea has potential. He believes that the value of checking of his idea might be $1b, because of potentially trillions of dollars worth of gains. Crucially, it would not take $1b to check his idea—that figure is an estimate of the potential value of checking the idea, not of the cost of checking it. The cost of checking is probably something like the social capital to connect him with a relevant person and the costs involved in running the simulation (if it progresses to that stage).
I don’t think this was a bad mistake on your end, just a quick, incorrect assumption that you made while trying to help someone. It only led to a fractious response because so many other EAs have also misread and misunderstood Anthony, and he is naturally tired and upset by this. In my opinion, the fault here lies mostly with social dynamics rather than any one person acting particularly badly.
I appreciate your attempts to engage productively (including deciding not to engage if that seems better to you), take responsibility for any mistakes you may have made, and without assigning blame to other parties. That is a clear positive to me.
My posts where I expressed what had been misrepresented and requested apologies have been deleted. And now, you apologize, after those deletes. I am suspicious. Why is your crew hiding the times I clarified and defended myself?
In truth, you DID talk about “Anthony getting EA funding” when you said “My hot take here is that if you spend $1B of EA money...” SO, don’t lie to me. You did, in fact, say that I would take funding. I hope your apology is real, and not just covering face by pretending you did nothing to misrepresent me. You did misrepresent me. Can you admit that?
As someone who knows Anthony in-person and has engaged in more high-bandwidth communication with him than anyone else on this thread, I am happy to stake social capital on his insights being very much worth listening to broadly speaking and that he’s worth connecting to anyone who could give his ideas legs.
I have downvoted at least one comment in this thread that I felt was not conducive to more of his ideas being externalized into the world due to what I believe to be unnecessary focus on social norms/tone policing over tracking object-level ideas. I am not responding further nor am I responding to particular comments as I don’t want to feed the demon thread, but I do want to provide clarity on my judgement of what-is-in-the-right and also state I think Anthony could very possibly provide us Cause X as much as anyone I’ve seen.
To that end, I believe his interest in new/different infrastructure for how to communicate and internalize ideas is reasonable, and that it’s unreasonable to expect idea providers to also have to be the idea executors in the ideal impact marketplace, especially to the extent of expecting them to engage in implicit politics more than is strictly necessary to get the ball rolling.
it’s unreasonable to expect idea providers to also have to be the idea executors in the ideal impact marketplace
I could be wrong, but I think that most people think that the key bottleneck is “idea executors”, not “idea providers”. (E.g. I heard Charity Entrepreneurship has many intervention ideas, but even after extensive selection and training they are bottlenecked by finding enough founders).
So one shouldn’t be surprised if they share a great idea but it doesn’t get any traction, it seems to be the current state of things.
I think it’s important that this actually involves staking social capital because I would otherwise find such revision of very negative behaviour based on what is clearly external friendship (as well as the mass upvoting) more problematic than anything else that has occurred.
Imagine if everyone did this for their friends/enemies on the forum.
Quote from above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
Hopefully, you read this comment BEFORE saying something like “But EA shouldn’t spend $1B on your idea” or “So you want us to fund this?”
I’ve received numerous mis-representations, each insisting that I am somehow asking for EA money. You demonstrate how poorly you pay attention; I’ll copy the quote again, in case anyone forgot by now:
“I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
Why am I repeatedly addressing such an obvious and shallow misrepresentation? What is going on with these people?
“it can cause us to go awry if it means we don’t take chances of upside seriously, or when we focus our concern on false positives rather than false negatives”
I’ve encountered this problem repeatedly in my attempts to speak with EAs here in the East Bay. With one topic, for example, I can napkin the numbers for them: $5 Trillion in real estate impacted by hurricanes, in US alone—so, there’s on-the-order-of a $1 Trillion wealth-effect if we can stop hurricanes. A proposal with a 1:1,000 chance of doing so would still be worth $1 Billion-ish to check for feasibility. Just running a simulation to get a sanity-check. Yet?
EAs are “busy coordinating retreats, so I don’t have time to help connect you to someone for a new project.” I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it. They’re also the ones who can negotiate with all those countries; a charity would fail, there. As I said in my EA Forum post on the topic, six months ago: I am looking for people to have a conversation. I expect that any particular individual would not be able to help, so I hope that each of the people listening would instead ask their own circle—in just two or three steps, that social network can reach almost anyone. The EAs are consistently reticent, wondering instead if I want funding, or if I am trying to get hired by them.
This is indicative of a pattern:
EAs have formats for dialogue which each serve certain needs well—the EA Forum, Slack, Conferences, Retreats, and local gatherings. Unfortunately, a vital format is missing from that list: the 1 to 2 hour, 2 to 5 person in-depth discussion, which includes people from outside that particular academic clique of sub-causes. I keep requesting this format, and I am told to “go to the Forum, or Slack”, where I have been waiting months for any response, now.
You’re referring to Seeking a Collaboration to Stop Hurricanes, right?
Reading your comments on that post, it sounds like you were hoping readers would respond to your post by making things happen. That’s occasionally the way things go, but almost always if you want to move something along you need to drive it. For example, if you think this is possibly one of the most important things to do you could consider:
Seeking funding to work on this full-time. With your full time work you could learn how to run a simulation, or attempt to convince the government to run one. You could also explore related hurricane prevention proposals (for example, Myhrvold’s proposal) .
Seeking funding to hire someone to work on this full-time (but if you aren’t willing to do it I expect funders to consider that a negative signal)
Actively looking for collaborators, for example by attempting to identify relevant academics
Just to note for the next person: I am now being called “powerless and vulnerable” because I stand against being mis-represented. I have been mis-represented repeatedly, and so I have responded to each—yet, the fact that I “repeatedly post (complaints about being misrepresented)… makes sure that not many people take (me) seriously.” If your clique repeatedly mis-represents me, and then they use my own self-defense as a reason to justify exclusion, you’ve earned the title of clique!
I’m going to be honest. I think you’d have a better experience here if you engaged with people in a way that was less adversarial. I can understand why you might be frustrated that people didn’t engage more with your ideas or that people misinterpreted what you wrote, but it seems to me that you’re currently in a cycle where you felt you were mistreated or ignored which leads you to send out negative energy which then results in further negative interactions; and hence the cycle continues.
For some reason, my original response is not showing up. I definitely did NOT make any attack on anyone, during my comment. I don’t see why it would be deleted—I request a review of whoever deleted my response. Here it is, again:
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
Further, again, I am not talking about “lack of engagaement”—ONLY your people have made that claim, and I dismiss it each time you’ve made it. I continue to point-out: I have been repeatedly misrepresented. I deserve an apology.
More to the point: why is my tone the more pressing issue, compared to the fact that I’ve been repeatedly misrepresented? Your Us/Them priorities are showing.
I think the biggest reason why your tone is relevant here is that you are seeking introductions to potential collaborators. People care a lot about what others are like to work with!
I agree! So, consider the scenario: I stand-up and ask “does anyone know someone I might talk to?” and the response I get is “but we don’t want to give you money”. I correct that misrepresentation, repeatedly, until I suspect that I am being trolled—and my self-defense is used as a reason to ignore me. If I hadn’t been poked-in-the-eye repeatedly, those introductions would begin on a pleasant footing.
Core to this problem: each of you are focusing on how I can “get better results by playing nice”. I am focusing on “I was misrepresented, and that should be considered first, in the moral calculus.” If I roll-over every time someone bullies me, then I’ll be liked by a whole lot of bullies. That doesn’t sound like a win, to me.
I honestly think this is the one thing I could have said that could have helped you achieve your goals the most, more than offering a connection to a relevant person, if I actually knew someone interested in hurricane prevention.
I suppose what you’re saying makes sense from where you stand. I guess I’m trying to show you another way of seeing the world, even though I know it won’t make sense from your perspective. I’d encourage you to imagine briefly what it would mean for this to be true, to explore what the world looks like through this lens, and its internal logic. I suspect that this exercise could be valuable even if you don’t end up agreeing with this perspective.
When did you edit your response? You were saying something else, originally...
Yes, I can imagine the world where I respond to the misrepresentations with politeness—I did that for twenty years, and the misrepresentations continued, along with so many other forms of bullying. I have seen the world from that lens, and I learned that it’s better for me to stand-up to misrepresentations, even if that means the bully doesn’t like me.
I have no idea if I edited it or not. I tried checking to see if they had a history feature, but apparently not.
Maybe I should have been clearer. I’m asking you to imagine the world where everyone isn’t intrinsically against you, they’ve tried to help and they’ve been pushed away. I know that’s a difficult ask, but I suspect it would be worthwhile.
Strong downvote for extreme and inappropriate condescension in the guise of helping someone. There is no adequate reason for you to assume that Anthony is living in a world where everyone is intrinsically against him, and that he cannot even imagine not living in a different world. This is an extremely strong statement to make about someone you know through a few online comments. Why do you think you’re right?
Even if you were right, helping him would not take the form of trying to point this out publicly in such a tactless way.
I can see why you might think it’s a guise, but it really isn’t the case. I think you’re correct that it does come off as slightly condescending, but this isn’t intentional. I’m trying to expand the range of what I can say without coming off as condescending, but for there are some things where I find it challenging; where it feels to me like trying to thread a needle. In any case, your comment contains useful feedback.
I just want to make it clear that it’s a genuine attempt to say the most helpful thing that I can, even if I think it only has a small chance of making a difference, but I agree that a private message might have been better. As for why I think this what I think, it’s mostly based on my experience of dealing with people. I could produce some explicit reasons if I really wanted to, but I’m not sure if it’s worthwhile given that they are more the sideshow than anything.
Thanks, this is a good followup. I’m glad my comment contained useful feedback for you.
I think your attempt to help Anthony went awry when he asked you why his tone was the bigger issue than whether he had been misrepresented, and you did not even seem to consider that he could be right in your reply. Perhaps he is right? Perhaps not? But it’s important to at least genuinely consider that he could be.
Thank you for recognizing that my concern was not addressed. I should mention, I am also not operating from an assumption of ‘intrinsically against me’ - it’s an unusually specific reaction that I’ve received on this forum, in particular. So, I’m glad that you have spoken-up in favor of due consideration. My stomach knots thank you :)
I don’t feel good about this situation, but I think your judgement is really different than most reads of what happened:
It’s clear to me that there’s someone who isn’t communicating or creating beliefs in a way that would be workable. Chris Leong’s comments seem objectively correct (if not likely to be useful).
(While committing this sin with this comment itself) It’s clearly better to walk away and leave them alone than risk stirring up another round of issues.
My comment very well may not be useful. I think there’s value in experimenting with different ways of engaging with people. I think it is possible to have these kind of conversations but I don’t think that I’ve quite managed to figure out how to do that yet.
I think the person involved is either having a specific negative personal incident, or revealing latent personality traits that suggest the situation is much less promising and below a reasonable bar for skilled intervention in a conversation.
With an willingness to be wrong and ignore norms, I think I could elaborate or make informative comments (maybe relevant of trust, scaling and dilution that seem to be major topics right now?). But it feels distasteful and inhumane to do this to one individual who is not an EA.
(I think EAs can and should endure much more, directly and publicly, and this seems like it would address would be problems with trust and scaling).
That’s useful feedback. I agree that it would have been better for me to engage with that more.
Glad to have been helpful :)
It seems someone is deleting my posts, when I have not said anything in those posts except my own self-defense and what has been done to me. Here it is, again:
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
I still see that comment at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cfdnJ3sDbCSkShiSZ/ea-and-the-current-funding-situation?commentId=6NRE6vxA5rhAC8cQP
I think it’s showing up as collapsed by default because it has been heavily downvoted?
Thank you for letting me know.
Thank you for the clarification. It’s still worrisome that a subset, by downvoting, can ensure that my correction of their misrepresentation goes un-noticed, while their misrepresentation of me stands in full view. There was another post on the Forum, recently, talking about how outsiders worry that EA is a cult or a clique—I hope you can see where that concern is coming from, when my self-defense is downvoted to obscurity, while the misrepresentations stand.
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
I am not looking for funding—I asked if anyone is interested in running those simulations, or knows someone they could put me in touch with.
I quote from my post directly above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
I’m appalled that multiple times, here now and when I posted originally, after stating that I am NOT seeking funding, I am repeatedly misrepresented as “seeking funding”. It’s a basic respect to read what I actually wrote.
Included in my hope for connections are the relevant academics—I began my search at the EA Berkeley campus chapter. I know that the government would not listen to me without at least a first-pass simulation of my own; and I know that it is ludicrous for me to invest time into developing a skill that others possess, or re-inventing the wheel by making my own simulation. Those are all significantly more wasteful and ineffectual than asking people if they know anyone in related fields—this is because social networks are dense graphs, so only two or three steps away, I am likely to find an appropriate specialist. Your advice is not appropriate.
At no point did I ask the readers to do the work of simulation, or proposing to the government, on my behalf; you used a strawman against me. I am specifically asking if people can look in their social network for anyone with relevant skill-sets, who I might talk to—those skilled folks are the place where I’m likely to find someone who would actually do work, not here on the forums with a string of dismissive ‘help’ and fallacies.
I can think of two main reasons why your posts haven’t resulted in introductions to relevant specialists:
People with those connections haven’t seen your posts.
While such people have seen your posts they don’t consider this opportunity sufficiently promising to pass it on.
While many people do read the Forum it wouldn’t be surprising if no one had seen your post who knew anyone relevant, since there aren’t that many relevant experts. And even if they are, when you give someone an introduction you are staking some of your social capital, and based on your initial post and comments here I would not, personally, be willing to stake such capital.
I had seen that you’d written that you weren’t looking for funding, and my post above doesn’t suggest that you were. Instead, I was suggesting that you do and giving ideas on how you might use funding to make progress on this project. After reading your responses here, however, I withdraw that suggestion.
I apologize for lumping your funding-suggestion along-side others’ funding-misrepresentation. I see that you are looking for ways to make it possible, and funding is what came to mind. Thank you.
(I am still surprised that funding is continually the first topic, after I specify that the government is the best institution to finance such a project. EA would go bankrupt, if they tried to stop hurricanes...)
And, I understand if people don’t consider my proposal promising—I am not demanding that they divert resources, especially funds which are best spent on highest guaranteed impact! Yet, there is a cliquishness in excluding diverse dialogue based upon “social capital/reputation”—I hope you can see that the social graph’s connectivity falls apart when we cut those ties.
It’s also odd that the only data-point used to evaluate me would be the slice of time immediately after I’d been prodded repeatedly. I wish I could hand you the video-tapes of my life, and let you evaluate me rightly. When I am repeatedly misrepresented, defending myself, then you don’t see a representative slice of who I am.
Worst of all, no measure of my persona or character is a measure of the worth of a thought. If I am not a good fit for making it happen, then the best I can do I find someone who fits that well. The idea itself stands or falls on its own merits, and measuring me ignores that. I won’t know if it’s worth doing until I have a simulation, at least. I don’t know how anyone else has certainty on the matter, especially from such a noisy proxy as “perceived tone via text message”.
The reason I brought up funding was not that I thought it might make sense for EAs to fund the entire thing, but that it might allow you to address the reasons your proposal is currently stalled. I gave a few ideas of specific things you might do with funding:
Free up your time to learn how to run a simulation.
Free up your time to for lobbying.
Exploring existing work on hurricane prevention.
Hiring someone else to do any of the above.
Yes, I understand that funding can let me hire people to do that work—and I don’t need funding to free my time. I understand that, if I delay for the sake of doing-it-alone, then I am responsible for that additional harm. It doesn’t make sense for me to run a simulation or lobby by myself; and I’ve been in the position of hiring people, as well as working with people who are internally motivated. I hoped to find the internally motivated people, first—that’s why I asked EA for connections, instead of just posting something on a job site.
It is not reasonable to expect people to spend 1 to 2 hours listening to an idea that is not relevant to them.
You espouse a bizarre cliquishness, by your claim. Look at the outcome it generates: you fail to hear new information from outside your bubble. Your claim does not become virtuous or correct, nor does it facilitate progress—you’re just claiming it to feel right.
(Here is a brutal answer but maybe helpful at this point.)
I haven’t read every comment of yours but my sense is that you are frustrated that no one has engaged with your idea.
One issue with this sentiment is that there is little or nothing in EA that is like “a fully general engine” for taking someone’s paragraphs of thoughts and executing on it. (This isn’t true but complicated/political to explain).
EA provides a lot of resources, but this takes some leg work and demonstration to get going. This price of entry is a good thing. There is a lot of horsepower and leadership needed to execute even a pretty obvious appearing project that could almost immediately get seed or exploratory funding.
An example is the snakebite post which seems like a great potential project. But even this project’s execution is uncertain.
To be concrete, you can come up with substantially more progress and much more substantial and credible work and no one needs to provide this for you. In fact it’s much much better you do it yourself at least in a first stage if you want your project to succeed.
(I think the above is brutal but maybe helpful. The below is brutal and probably unhelpful but it’s useful for onlookers).
There is a large supply of people who have ideas or public complaints that don’t seem to achieve progress.
When examined, the underlying issue often isn’t related with their idea in principle.
The reality is that many patterns of forum use or complaints indicate lack of effectiveness (or distinctly, telegraph a sense of powerlessness and sometimes vulnerability). So their repeatedly posting is sort of an anti pattern that makes sure not many people take them seriously.
I am frustrated that I am repeatedly misrepresented, which is what I said in my responses. I am not frustrated by a lack of “people doing leg work for me”. I am specifically asking if anyone has connections toward the relevant specialists, so that I can talk to those specialists. I’m not sure why that would be “something I should do on my own”—I’m literally reaching out to gather specialists, which is the first leg work, obviously. Re-inventing the wheel to impress an audience by “going it alone” is actually counter-productive.
I don’t need a “fully general engine”—you are misrepresenting my request, as others have. I am asking if anyone knows someone with the relevant background. I am NOT asking for funding, nor a general protocol that addresses every post. Those are strawmen. No one has apologized for these strawmen; they just ghost the conversation.
And, if you are using the fact that I stood-up to repeated mis-representations as “telegraph a sense of powerlessness and sometimes vulnerability”, and as a result, I should not be taken seriously, then you are squashing the only means of recourse available to me. When my request is repeatedly mis-represented, and I respond to each of them, I am necessarily “repeatedly posting”—I’m not sure why that noisy proxy for “lack of effectiveness” is a better signal for you than actually reading what I wrote.
You’ve responded with hostility and intense frustration to Linch and Khorton, who are goofy, but well meaning people. That’s really bad and you should stop writing like this. (EDIT: also Jeff Kaufman).
(Note that I suspect there something unseemly about my personal conduct in replying to you. To myself, in my head, I think I am doing it because it provides useful information to onlookers, because this would be mansplaining in other circumstances. I need to think about this.)
The brutal truth is that “specialist” access is sort of like gold. I and most people wouldn’t give someone with this account access to any specialists because this is unpromising but also because these relationships are valuable and reflect on them.
Separately, I think hard, esoteric projects in EA deserve real seed or exploratory funding. I am not really following to be honest, but the fact that you have this thread about misrepresentation might be because there is some underlying issue you don’t understand this or how projects are executed.
It’s also telling that, though I pointed-out how you sought to use “repeated posting” as a proxy for my “powerlessness and vulnerability...lack of effectiveness”, you made no mention of it, afterwards. Judging someone on such shallow evidence is the opposite of skeptical inquiry; it doesn’t bode well for your own effectiveness. Am I being hostile when I say that to you, while you are NOT hostile, when you say it to me, first?
When I am repeatedly misrepresented, and no one who does so responds with an apology, I am supposed to adhere to your standards of dialogue? Why are my standards not respected, first?
If specialist access is gold, then what do I need to pay them? I’ll figure funding separately—who, and how much?
Exploratory work is great—yet, as Jeff was saying in this exact thread’s original post—EA needs to be willing to take the leap on risky new ideas. That was, also, the part of his post that I quoted, in my original response. Do you see how they are related to what we are talking about? Perhaps EA should take a risk, and connect me to a specialist, and if EA thinks that specialist should be paid, I’ll work that out, next.
Have you talked to Sella Nevo, who does flood prediction at Google?
My own hot take here is that if you spent 1 billion dollars of EA money to save the US gov’t 1 trillion dollars, you’ve likely wasted >900 million dollars. But I know other people are more optimistic about US gov’t funding priorities (or more pessimistic about EA uses of money).
I quote from above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
I’m NOT asking to use EA money—I repeatedly clarify that, at every opportunity, and yet it is insisted-up multiple times, on this forum. No, EA only has $30B, so you can’t afford stopping hurricanes, even if you spent your entire budget. I pointed to the potential value of looking for solutions at $1B, which is the actual expected-value, NOT the ‘value to EA’. I’m not trying to take ANY dollars from your charities. Do you hear that, yet? I don’t appreciate being repeatedly misrepresented and strawmanned.
Are you suggesting that I cold-call Sella Nevo? Do you have a way to put me in touch, so that I am not ignored, as I have been here?
I did not say you were looking for funding. I am sorry to the degree I am responsible for miscommunication, or if I unintentionally upset you in any way. I am always trying to be better at communication. I hope you have a good day.
Upvoted for the last three sentences, but I believe your first sentence is incorrect. The second paragraph of your initial comment does not make sense to me in the absence of you believing that Anthony was looking for funding.
I was not intentionally suggesting that Anthony was asking for a billion dollars in funding. It’s strange to me that >=2 people will read my comment that way. I’m again sorry for any miscommunication.
I don’t think it’s prudent for me to engage further in this thread, even though this type of thing naturally draws me in. I will donate $10 to Homeopaths Without Borders if I comment further.
I hope you have a good day.
My read on your comment is that you misread Anthony’s allusion to $1b as about potentially spending $1b at some stage (whether right now or later), rather than about the expected impact of his idea. I could be wrong, but that’s the only way your comment makes sense to me (“if you spent $1b of EA money”—what could this refer to besides spending $1b of money?).
Anthony is asking for connection to someone who is skilled at running a particular kind of simulation to see if his idea has potential. He believes that the value of checking of his idea might be $1b, because of potentially trillions of dollars worth of gains. Crucially, it would not take $1b to check his idea—that figure is an estimate of the potential value of checking the idea, not of the cost of checking it. The cost of checking is probably something like the social capital to connect him with a relevant person and the costs involved in running the simulation (if it progresses to that stage).
I don’t think this was a bad mistake on your end, just a quick, incorrect assumption that you made while trying to help someone. It only led to a fractious response because so many other EAs have also misread and misunderstood Anthony, and he is naturally tired and upset by this. In my opinion, the fault here lies mostly with social dynamics rather than any one person acting particularly badly.
I appreciate your attempts to engage productively (including deciding not to engage if that seems better to you), take responsibility for any mistakes you may have made, and without assigning blame to other parties. That is a clear positive to me.
Hope you have a good day as well :)
The “misrepresentation” about a search for funding was related for monies for a personal project or org to develop the intervention.
The second paragraph was for funding for the intervention itself.
They are really different things. Like the difference between an org researching food aid, versus buying billions of dollars of actual food.
I doubt the person believes he can literally stop hurricanes without government funding.
Unfortunately, I think you are muddying the waters in your intervention. With my read of the relevant person, this might not serve them well.
My posts where I expressed what had been misrepresented and requested apologies have been deleted. And now, you apologize, after those deletes. I am suspicious. Why is your crew hiding the times I clarified and defended myself?
In truth, you DID talk about “Anthony getting EA funding” when you said “My hot take here is that if you spend $1B of EA money...” SO, don’t lie to me. You did, in fact, say that I would take funding. I hope your apology is real, and not just covering face by pretending you did nothing to misrepresent me. You did misrepresent me. Can you admit that?
As someone who knows Anthony in-person and has engaged in more high-bandwidth communication with him than anyone else on this thread, I am happy to stake social capital on his insights being very much worth listening to broadly speaking and that he’s worth connecting to anyone who could give his ideas legs.
I have downvoted at least one comment in this thread that I felt was not conducive to more of his ideas being externalized into the world due to what I believe to be unnecessary focus on social norms/tone policing over tracking object-level ideas. I am not responding further nor am I responding to particular comments as I don’t want to feed the demon thread, but I do want to provide clarity on my judgement of what-is-in-the-right and also state I think Anthony could very possibly provide us Cause X as much as anyone I’ve seen.
To that end, I believe his interest in new/different infrastructure for how to communicate and internalize ideas is reasonable, and that it’s unreasonable to expect idea providers to also have to be the idea executors in the ideal impact marketplace, especially to the extent of expecting them to engage in implicit politics more than is strictly necessary to get the ball rolling.
I could be wrong, but I think that most people think that the key bottleneck is “idea executors”, not “idea providers”. (E.g. I heard Charity Entrepreneurship has many intervention ideas, but even after extensive selection and training they are bottlenecked by finding enough founders).
So one shouldn’t be surprised if they share a great idea but it doesn’t get any traction, it seems to be the current state of things.
I think it’s important that this actually involves staking social capital because I would otherwise find such revision of very negative behaviour based on what is clearly external friendship (as well as the mass upvoting) more problematic than anything else that has occurred.
Imagine if everyone did this for their friends/enemies on the forum.
Quote from above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
Hopefully, you read this comment BEFORE saying something like “But EA shouldn’t spend $1B on your idea” or “So you want us to fund this?”
I’ve received numerous mis-representations, each insisting that I am somehow asking for EA money. You demonstrate how poorly you pay attention; I’ll copy the quote again, in case anyone forgot by now:
“I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
Why am I repeatedly addressing such an obvious and shallow misrepresentation? What is going on with these people?