I did this for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I think that it hurt my case more than helped it. It put people on the defensive right from the get go and was harsh if you didn’t have the whole context of my background to know I was joking, which of course, most readers wouldn’t. This is not the best way to be persuasive.
I think there are many ways to be engaging, and being controversial is just one way. However, I think being controversial is a risky and generally suboptimal way of getting people interested in something. It mostly just promotes polarization, which is counterproductive. I wouldn’t want EA to start doing more of this compared to all of the other ways you can be more engaging (like jokes, bullet points, smaller paragraphs, stories, pull quotes, pictures, etc).
In general, a lesson I pulled from this is to have more people look at my writing before I post. I had three people check it and one person expressed reservations about the title, but they didn’t push hard and it seemed like it was an idiosyncratic preference. In fact, some suggested even more controversial ones, like “Bad writing kills babies”.
If I’d had more people I would have been able to tell in advance that I should brainstorm more titles that were both interesting, accurate, and persuasive. In my little social bubble where everybody knew me, they just thought that the title was hilarious, which led me to be a bit blindsided by the reaction.
Fortunately, this is the EA movement, and one of my favorite things about this community is that people appreciate when you update based on evidence. So, despite a rather large part of my brain that is saying “You said this thing publicly! Defend it to the ends of the earth”, I’d rather the earth not end, so I’ll update the title, and hopefully we can have a more engaging EA blogosphere while also keeping sensationalism out of it.
Fortunately, this is the EA movement, and one of my favorite things about this community is that people appreciate when you update based on evidence. So, despite a rather large part of my brain that is saying “You said this thing publicly! Defend it to the ends of the earth”, I’d rather the earth not end, so I’ll update the title, and hopefully we can have a more engaging EA blogosphere while also keeping sensationalism out of it.
I think this should be applauded. Thanks so much for engaging with your critics and learning from your mistakes, as well as teaching the rest of us something important. It definitely makes you a good person, not a bad person.
I’ve changed the title of this post. [...] First and foremost, I think that it hurt my case more than helped it. It put people on the defensive right from the get go and was harsh if you didn’t have the whole context of my background to know I was joking [...] I think there are many ways to be engaging, and being controversial is just one way. However, I think being controversial is a risky and generally suboptimal way of getting people interested in something. It mostly just promotes polarization, which is counterproductive.
I think this is a really important lesson. Optimizing for clickthroughs is not the same as optimizing for impact, and the former can be dangerous.
In general, a lesson I pulled from this is to have more people look at my writing before I post. I had three people check it and one person expressed reservations about the title, but they didn’t push hard and it seemed like it was an idiosyncratic preference. [...] In my little social bubble where everybody knew me, they just thought that the title was hilarious, which led me to be a bit blindsided by the reaction.
Another important lesson seems to be to have the post read by one or two people who aren’t that familiar with you.
In fact, some suggested even more controversial ones, like “Bad writing kills babies”.
For some reason, this title feels over the top to the point where it does make me know you are kidding. It’s also memorable. But maybe it would backfire with other people—I don’t know.
I’ve changed the title of this post.
I did this for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I think that it hurt my case more than helped it. It put people on the defensive right from the get go and was harsh if you didn’t have the whole context of my background to know I was joking, which of course, most readers wouldn’t. This is not the best way to be persuasive.
I think there are many ways to be engaging, and being controversial is just one way. However, I think being controversial is a risky and generally suboptimal way of getting people interested in something. It mostly just promotes polarization, which is counterproductive. I wouldn’t want EA to start doing more of this compared to all of the other ways you can be more engaging (like jokes, bullet points, smaller paragraphs, stories, pull quotes, pictures, etc).
In general, a lesson I pulled from this is to have more people look at my writing before I post. I had three people check it and one person expressed reservations about the title, but they didn’t push hard and it seemed like it was an idiosyncratic preference. In fact, some suggested even more controversial ones, like “Bad writing kills babies”.
If I’d had more people I would have been able to tell in advance that I should brainstorm more titles that were both interesting, accurate, and persuasive. In my little social bubble where everybody knew me, they just thought that the title was hilarious, which led me to be a bit blindsided by the reaction.
Fortunately, this is the EA movement, and one of my favorite things about this community is that people appreciate when you update based on evidence. So, despite a rather large part of my brain that is saying “You said this thing publicly! Defend it to the ends of the earth”, I’d rather the earth not end, so I’ll update the title, and hopefully we can have a more engaging EA blogosphere while also keeping sensationalism out of it.
I think this should be applauded. Thanks so much for engaging with your critics and learning from your mistakes, as well as teaching the rest of us something important. It definitely makes you a good person, not a bad person.
I think this is a really important lesson. Optimizing for clickthroughs is not the same as optimizing for impact, and the former can be dangerous.
Another important lesson seems to be to have the post read by one or two people who aren’t that familiar with you.
For some reason, this title feels over the top to the point where it does make me know you are kidding. It’s also memorable. But maybe it would backfire with other people—I don’t know.