It seems like a lot of criticism of EA stems from concern about “groupthink” dynamics. At least, that is my read on the main reason Dave dislikes retreats. This is a major concern of mine as well.
I know groups like CEA and Open Phil have encouraged and funded EA criticism. My difficulty is I don’t know where to find that criticism. I suppose the EA forum frequently posts criticisms, but fighting groupthink by reading the forum seems counter productive.
I’ve personally found a lot of benefit in reading Reflective Altruism’s blog.
What I’m saying is, I know EA orgs want to encourage criticism, and good criticisms do exit, but I don’t think orgs have found a great way to disseminate those criticisms yet. I would want criticism dissemination to be more of a focus.
For example, there is an AI Safety reading list an EA group put out. It’s very helpful, but I haven’t seen any substantive criticism linked to in that list, while arguments in favor of longtermism comprise most of the lists.
I’ve only been to a handful of the conferences, but I’ve not seen a “Why to be skeptical of longtermism” talk posted.
Has there been an 80k podcast episode that centers longtermism skepticism before? I know it’s been addressed, but I think I’ve only seen it addressed relatively briefly by people who are longtermists or identify as EA. I’d like to see more guests like the longtermist skeptics at GPI.
I’ve not seen an event centering longtermism/EA criticism put on by my local group. To be fair to the group, I’ve not browsed their events for some time.
The rare occasions I have seen references to longtermism criticism, it’s something like a blog post made by someone who agrees with longtermism but is laying out counter arguments to be rigorous. This is good of them to do, but genuine criticisms from people outside of the community are more valuable and I’d like to see more of them.
Something related to disseminating more criticism, is including more voices from non-EAs. I worry when I see a list of references and it is all EAs. This seems common, even on websites like 80k.
It seems like a lot of criticism of EA stems from concern about “groupthink” dynamics. At least, that is my read on the main reason Dave dislikes retreats. This is a major concern of mine as well.
I know groups like CEA and Open Phil have encouraged and funded EA criticism. My difficulty is I don’t know where to find that criticism. I suppose the EA forum frequently posts criticisms, but fighting groupthink by reading the forum seems counter productive.
I’ve personally found a lot of benefit in reading Reflective Altruism’s blog.
What I’m saying is, I know EA orgs want to encourage criticism, and good criticisms do exit, but I don’t think orgs have found a great way to disseminate those criticisms yet. I would want criticism dissemination to be more of a focus.
For example, there is an AI Safety reading list an EA group put out. It’s very helpful, but I haven’t seen any substantive criticism linked to in that list, while arguments in favor of longtermism comprise most of the lists.
I’ve only been to a handful of the conferences, but I’ve not seen a “Why to be skeptical of longtermism” talk posted.
Has there been an 80k podcast episode that centers longtermism skepticism before? I know it’s been addressed, but I think I’ve only seen it addressed relatively briefly by people who are longtermists or identify as EA. I’d like to see more guests like the longtermist skeptics at GPI.
I’ve not seen an event centering longtermism/EA criticism put on by my local group. To be fair to the group, I’ve not browsed their events for some time.
The rare occasions I have seen references to longtermism criticism, it’s something like a blog post made by someone who agrees with longtermism but is laying out counter arguments to be rigorous. This is good of them to do, but genuine criticisms from people outside of the community are more valuable and I’d like to see more of them.
Something related to disseminating more criticism, is including more voices from non-EAs. I worry when I see a list of references and it is all EAs. This seems common, even on websites like 80k.