Hey, thanks for the comment. Indeed something I was worried about with the later post was whether I was a bit unhinged (but the converse is, am I afraid to point out dynamics that I think are correct?). I dealt with this by first asking friends for feedback, then posting it but distributing it not very widely, then once I got some comments (some of which private) saying that this also corresponded to other people’s impressions, I decided to share it more widely.
The examples Nuño gives...
You are picking on the weakest example. The strongest one might be Sapphire. A more recent one might have been John Halstead, who had a bad day, and despite his longstanding contributions to the community was treated with very little empathy and left the forum.
Furthermore, while criticising OpenPhil/EA ‘leadership’, Nuňo doesn’t make points that EA is too naïve/consequentialist/ignoring common-sense enough. Instead, they don’t think we’ve gone far enough into that direction.[1] See in Alternate Visions of EA, the claim “if you aren’t producing an SBF or two, then your movement isn’t being ambitious enough”. In a comment reply in Why are we not harder, better, faster, stronger?, they say “There is a perspective from which having a few SBFs is a healthy sign.” While many of you may be very critical of EA leadetship and OpenPhil, I suspect many of you will be critiquing that orthodoxy from exactly the opposite direction. Be aware of this if you’re upvoting.
I think this paragraph misrepresents me:
I don’t claim that “if you aren’t producing an SBF or two, then your movement isn’t being ambitious enough”. I explore different ways EA could look, and then write “From the creators of “if you haven’t missed a flight, you are spending too much time in airports” comes “if you aren’t producing an SBF or two, then your movement isn’t being ambitious enough.””. The first is a bold assertion, the second one is reasonable to present in the context of exploring varied possibilities.
The full context for the other quote is “There is a perspective from which having a few SBFs is a healthy sign. Sure, you would rather have zero, but the extreme in which one of your members scams billions seems better than one in which your followers are bogged down writing boring plays, or never organize to do meaningful action. I’m not actually sure that I do agree with this perspective, but I think there is something to it.” (bold mine). Another way to word this less provocatively is: even with SBF, I think the EA community has had positive impact.
In general, I think picking quotes out of context just seems deeply hostile.
First, their priorities are different from mine” (so what?)
So if leadership has priorities different from the rest of the movement, the rest of the movement should be more reluctant to follow. But this is for people to decide individually, I think.
“the EA machine has been making some weird and mediocre moves” (would like some actual examples on the object-level of this)
but without evidence to back this up
You can see some examples in section 5.
A view towards maximisation above all,
I think the strongest version of my current beliefs is that quantification is underdeployed on the margin and it can unearth Pareto improvements. This is joined with an impression that we should generally be much more ambitious. This doesn’t require me to believe that more maximization will always be good, rather than, at the current margin, more ambition is.
Really appreciate your reply Nuno, and apologies if I’ve misrepresented you, or if I’m coming across as overly hostile. I’ll edit my original comment given your & Arepo’s response. I think part of why I posted my comment (even though I was nervous to), is that you’re a highly valued member of the community[1], and your criticisms are listening to and carrying weight. I am/was just trying to do my part to kick the tires, and distinguish criticisms I think are valid/supported from those which are less so.
On the object level claims, I’m going to come over to your home turf (blog) and discuss it there, given you expressed a preference for it! Though if you don’t think it’ll be valuable for you, then by all means feel free to not engage. I think there are actually lots of points where we agree (at least directionally), so I hope it may be productive, or at least useful for you if I can provide good/constructive criticism.
Hey, thanks for the comment. Indeed something I was worried about with the later post was whether I was a bit unhinged (but the converse is, am I afraid to point out dynamics that I think are correct?). I dealt with this by first asking friends for feedback, then posting it but distributing it not very widely, then once I got some comments (some of which private) saying that this also corresponded to other people’s impressions, I decided to share it more widely.
You are picking on the weakest example. The strongest one might be Sapphire. A more recent one might have been John Halstead, who had a bad day, and despite his longstanding contributions to the community was treated with very little empathy and left the forum.
I think this paragraph misrepresents me:
I don’t claim that “if you aren’t producing an SBF or two, then your movement isn’t being ambitious enough”. I explore different ways EA could look, and then write “From the creators of “if you haven’t missed a flight, you are spending too much time in airports” comes “if you aren’t producing an SBF or two, then your movement isn’t being ambitious enough.””. The first is a bold assertion, the second one is reasonable to present in the context of exploring varied possibilities.
The full context for the other quote is “There is a perspective from which having a few SBFs is a healthy sign. Sure, you would rather have zero, but the extreme in which one of your members scams billions seems better than one in which your followers are bogged down writing boring plays, or never organize to do meaningful action. I’m not actually sure that I do agree with this perspective, but I think there is something to it.” (bold mine). Another way to word this less provocatively is: even with SBF, I think the EA community has had positive impact.
In general, I think picking quotes out of context just seems deeply hostile.
So if leadership has priorities different from the rest of the movement, the rest of the movement should be more reluctant to follow. But this is for people to decide individually, I think.
You can see some examples in section 5.
I think the strongest version of my current beliefs is that quantification is underdeployed on the margin and it can unearth Pareto improvements. This is joined with an impression that we should generally be much more ambitious. This doesn’t require me to believe that more maximization will always be good, rather than, at the current margin, more ambition is.
Really appreciate your reply Nuno, and apologies if I’ve misrepresented you, or if I’m coming across as overly hostile. I’ll edit my original comment given your & Arepo’s response. I think part of why I posted my comment (even though I was nervous to), is that you’re a highly valued member of the community[1], and your criticisms are listening to and carrying weight. I am/was just trying to do my part to kick the tires, and distinguish criticisms I think are valid/supported from those which are less so.
On the object level claims, I’m going to come over to your home turf (blog) and discuss it there, given you expressed a preference for it! Though if you don’t think it’ll be valuable for you, then by all means feel free to not engage. I think there are actually lots of points where we agree (at least directionally), so I hope it may be productive, or at least useful for you if I can provide good/constructive criticism.
I very much value you and your work, even if I disagree