I find the framing of boring writing being “unethical” a bit odd. The argument seems to be that boring writing is ineffective. But if someone would write post with the title “Why ineffective giving is unethical” or “Why it’s unethical to choose an ineffective career”, then I think that many people would find that quite off-putting.
Personally, I share Ozzie’s concern about clickbait proliferation, but I didn’t think the title here was too bad: I think you can technically say (per utilitarianism) that sometimes being more boring is “unethical.” The point about ineffective giving and careers being off-putting is “correct,” but I don’t see that as really relevant to what Kat wrote here: those would be bad titles (in my view) primarily because they insult large personal choices that someone may have made in the past and which also tend to reflect/create a piece of someone’s identity (especially a career choice)—much more so than a writing style. Also, to me it reads a slight bit tongue-in-cheek (if only in that it feels somewhat self-referential, given the subject of the post).
It’s just an example: I think it would also sound odd to say that minor decisions that reduce impact but are otherwise fine, e.g. from the perspective of common-sense morality, are “unethical”.
I’ll agree that some people may still find “boring writing is unethical” to be off-putting, and I’ll also say that I personally find it to be “odd.” However, I definitely don’t see it as off-putting as saying/implying “your career choice to be a [position that society tends to hold up as good] was immoral,” for reasons I described above. My initial (and current) reading of your original comment (especially after seeing MichaelChen’s response) was “I think this is odd and could be very off-putting; here’s an analogy/example of why I think that.” I would certainly agree that people shouldn’t title their posts “[X career that you know and society loves] is unethical [because it’s not as effective as Y career].” However, if you’re just saying it’s odd and slightly off-putting, I would say “maybe, but I also think the benefits of being bold here might outweigh that.”
I agree that some people would (and did!) find it offputting. I also think that many people find EA and the drowning child argument offputting as well, for similar reasons.
To be clear, I wouldn’t use this argument in a space where most people were a much larger inferential gap away from me. I would never try to get somebody excited about EA by telling them about how what they were currently doing was wrong.
However, I thought (and perhaps I was wrong) that EA Forum readers were close enough inferentially to just think it was funny.
I made my case more nuanced and clear in the post, and added a subtitle with a more positive spin, but perhaps that wasn’t enough.
On the one hand, I think the drowning child argument is probably correct, and I think that the title is engaging. It’s probably a huge part of the reason why there’s so much discussion in the comment section and why it got so many people reading it, which exactly proves my point.
On the other hand, I think maybe more people are on the defensive because of it. Generally it’s more persuasive to tell people about opportunities to do something cool vs telling them they’re wrong for doing their current thing (opportunity vs obligation framework).
However, I’m also not an opportunities framing altruist. I’m here because children are drowning, and it’s not an exciting thing to help, but a thing that I must do.
I digress.
Suffice to say, I’m uncertain about the title. Perhaps it was too strong, and explaining it more in the body of the work wasn’t enough, and I should have spent more time at the drawing board, brainstorming possible titles. Perhaps it exactly exemplifies my point, where it said something true and entertaining, in a way that got a lot more people thinking about it, and thus, it will help change the norms of the EA Forum to me more interesting, leading to the community having more impact.
Either way, it definitely symbolizes the daily consequentialist problem of looking at an action, trying to weigh up its consequences, and in the end, after deep thought, thinking “Heck if I know. Prooobably net good? I need a nap.”
Personally, I don’t think this deserves that much discussion time. It’s literally one word.
All that said, I’d note that I couldn’t at all tell that it was humorous. The problem is that I just don’t feel like I can model authors that well. I know that many, particularly junior ones, do make such titles genuinely (not jokingly), so I just assumed it was that way.
It really, really, sucks, but I think public writing generally can’t be subtle/clever in many ways we’re used to with friends and colleagues. Our friends would pick up on things like this, but random people online would often miss it. I’ve been trying to write with much less subtlety than I do in smaller communities; it’s less nice, but I don’t see another way.
To be clear, I wouldn’t use this argument in a space where most people were a much larger inferential gap away from me. I would never try to get somebody excited about EA by telling them about how what they were currently doing was wrong.
However, I thought (and perhaps I was wrong) that EA Forum readers were close enough inferentially to just think it was funny.
For what it’s worth, I think this was an entirely reasonable expectation to have, and this is how I read the title of your post. It’s provocative without being “clickbaity.” So I found the comments objecting to it pretty unrelatable and surprising.
I agree, I think the title is overly clickbait-y. And the defense
But “If you buy the drowning child argument and are a utilitarian, then you ought to make your writing more interesting” wasn’t nearly as pithy.
is targeting a strawman. That’s fine—it’s funny—but it’s not great when the strawman argument is the only defense given. There are other reasonable, succinct titles this post could have chosen instead which better represent the author’s claim, such as “EA writing should be less boring”.
There are other reasonable, succinct titles this post could have chosen instead which better represent the author’s claim, such as “EA writing should be less boring”.
I would make the case that this would be a more dry title, which would have got less readership, which would have triggered less discussion, and thus have had less impact.
I spent a lot of time brainstorming titles. Perhaps there’s a better one out there, but I wasn’t able to find one.
I find the framing of boring writing being “unethical” a bit odd. The argument seems to be that boring writing is ineffective. But if someone would write post with the title “Why ineffective giving is unethical” or “Why it’s unethical to choose an ineffective career”, then I think that many people would find that quite off-putting.
Personally, I share Ozzie’s concern about clickbait proliferation, but I didn’t think the title here was too bad: I think you can technically say (per utilitarianism) that sometimes being more boring is “unethical.” The point about ineffective giving and careers being off-putting is “correct,” but I don’t see that as really relevant to what Kat wrote here: those would be bad titles (in my view) primarily because they insult large personal choices that someone may have made in the past and which also tend to reflect/create a piece of someone’s identity (especially a career choice)—much more so than a writing style. Also, to me it reads a slight bit tongue-in-cheek (if only in that it feels somewhat self-referential, given the subject of the post).
It’s just an example: I think it would also sound odd to say that minor decisions that reduce impact but are otherwise fine, e.g. from the perspective of common-sense morality, are “unethical”.
I’ll agree that some people may still find “boring writing is unethical” to be off-putting, and I’ll also say that I personally find it to be “odd.” However, I definitely don’t see it as off-putting as saying/implying “your career choice to be a [position that society tends to hold up as good] was immoral,” for reasons I described above. My initial (and current) reading of your original comment (especially after seeing MichaelChen’s response) was “I think this is odd and could be very off-putting; here’s an analogy/example of why I think that.” I would certainly agree that people shouldn’t title their posts “[X career that you know and society loves] is unethical [because it’s not as effective as Y career].” However, if you’re just saying it’s odd and slightly off-putting, I would say “maybe, but I also think the benefits of being bold here might outweigh that.”
I’m torn about my title choice.
I agree that some people would (and did!) find it offputting. I also think that many people find EA and the drowning child argument offputting as well, for similar reasons.
To be clear, I wouldn’t use this argument in a space where most people were a much larger inferential gap away from me. I would never try to get somebody excited about EA by telling them about how what they were currently doing was wrong.
However, I thought (and perhaps I was wrong) that EA Forum readers were close enough inferentially to just think it was funny.
I made my case more nuanced and clear in the post, and added a subtitle with a more positive spin, but perhaps that wasn’t enough.
On the one hand, I think the drowning child argument is probably correct, and I think that the title is engaging. It’s probably a huge part of the reason why there’s so much discussion in the comment section and why it got so many people reading it, which exactly proves my point.
On the other hand, I think maybe more people are on the defensive because of it. Generally it’s more persuasive to tell people about opportunities to do something cool vs telling them they’re wrong for doing their current thing (opportunity vs obligation framework).
However, I’m also not an opportunities framing altruist. I’m here because children are drowning, and it’s not an exciting thing to help, but a thing that I must do.
I digress.
Suffice to say, I’m uncertain about the title. Perhaps it was too strong, and explaining it more in the body of the work wasn’t enough, and I should have spent more time at the drawing board, brainstorming possible titles. Perhaps it exactly exemplifies my point, where it said something true and entertaining, in a way that got a lot more people thinking about it, and thus, it will help change the norms of the EA Forum to me more interesting, leading to the community having more impact.
Either way, it definitely symbolizes the daily consequentialist problem of looking at an action, trying to weigh up its consequences, and in the end, after deep thought, thinking “Heck if I know. Prooobably net good? I need a nap.”
Personally, I don’t think this deserves that much discussion time. It’s literally one word.
All that said, I’d note that I couldn’t at all tell that it was humorous. The problem is that I just don’t feel like I can model authors that well. I know that many, particularly junior ones, do make such titles genuinely (not jokingly), so I just assumed it was that way.
It really, really, sucks, but I think public writing generally can’t be subtle/clever in many ways we’re used to with friends and colleagues. Our friends would pick up on things like this, but random people online would often miss it. I’ve been trying to write with much less subtlety than I do in smaller communities; it’s less nice, but I don’t see another way.
For what it’s worth, I think this was an entirely reasonable expectation to have, and this is how I read the title of your post. It’s provocative without being “clickbaity.” So I found the comments objecting to it pretty unrelatable and surprising.
In the end, I’ve dedided to update my title based on this feedback and others’ reactions. You can read more here
FWIW I absolutely think ineffective giving is (frequently) unethical, so this doesn’t seem weird to me.
I’ve updated my title based on this feedback and others’ reactions. You can read more here
I agree, I think the title is overly clickbait-y. And the defense
is targeting a strawman. That’s fine—it’s funny—but it’s not great when the strawman argument is the only defense given. There are other reasonable, succinct titles this post could have chosen instead which better represent the author’s claim, such as “EA writing should be less boring”.
I would make the case that this would be a more dry title, which would have got less readership, which would have triggered less discussion, and thus have had less impact.
I spent a lot of time brainstorming titles. Perhaps there’s a better one out there, but I wasn’t able to find one.