âTruthseekingâ is a strange piece of jargon. Iâm not sure what purpose it serves. It seems like the meaning of âtruthseekingâ ambiguates between âpracticing good epistemologyâ and âbeing intellectually honestâ, as you describe. So, why not use one of those terms instead?
One thing that annoys me about the EA Forum (which I previously wrote about here) is that thereâs way too much EA Forum-specific jargon. One negative effect of this is it makes it harder to understand what people are trying to say. Another negative effect is it elevates a lot of interesting conjecture to the level of conventional wisdom. If you have some interesting idea in a blog post or a forum post, and then people are quick to incorporate that into the lingo, youâve made that idea part of the culture, part of the conventional wisdom. And it seems like people do this too easily.
If you see someone using the term âtruthseekingâ on the EA Forum, then:
There is no clear definition of this term anywhere that you can easily Google or search on the forum. There is a vague definition on the Effective Altruism Australia website. There is no entry for âtruthseekingâ in the EA Forum Wiki. The Wikipedia page for truth-seeking says, âTruth-seeking processes allow societies to examine and come to grips with past crimes and atrocities and prevent their future repetition. Truth-seeking often occurs in societies emerging from a period of prolonged conflict or authoritarian rule.[1] The most famous example to date is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, although many other examples also exist.â
To the extent EA Forum users even have a clear definition of this term in their heads, they may be bringing along their own quirky ideas about epistemology or intellectual honesty or whatever. And are those good ideas? Who knows? Probably some are and a lot arenât. Making âtruthseekingâ a fundamental value and then defining âtruthseekingâ in your own quirky way elevates something you read on an obscure blog last year to the level of an idea that has been scrutinized and debated by a diverse array of scholars across the world for decades and stood the test of time. Thatâs a really silly, bad way to decide which ideas are true and which are false (or dubious, or promising, or a mixed bag, or whatever).
Chances are the person is using it passive-aggressively, or with the implication that theyâre more truthseeking than someone else. Iâve never seen someone say, âI wasnât being truthseeking enough and changed my approach.â This kinda makes it feel like the main purpose of the word is to be passive-aggressive and act superior.
It seems like the meaning of âtruthseekingâ ambiguates between âpracticing good epistemologyâ and âbeing intellectually honestâ
Very accurate and succinct summary of the issue.
One thing that annoys me about the EA Forum (which I previously wrote about here) is that thereâs way too much EA Forum-specific jargon.
Good point. I think actually there is an entire class of related jargon for which something like the above applies. For example, I think its often a bad idea to say stuff like:
âYouâre being uncharitable.â
âYouâre strawmanning me.â
âCan you please just steelman my position?â
âI donât think you could pass my ITT.â
âYouâre argument is a committing the motte-baily fallacy.â
âYouâre committing the noncentral fallacy.â
And other similar comments. I think clarity issue around some types of jargon are related to your next point. People pickup on ideas that are intuitive but still very rough. This can often mean that the speaker feels super confident in their meaning but it is confusing to the reader because they may interpret these rough ideas differently.
I also feel something similar to what you say where people seem to jump on ideas rather quickly and run with them, whereas my reaction is, donât you want to stress test this a bit more before giving it the full-send? I view this as a significant cultural/âworldview difference that I perceive between myself and a lot of EAs, which I sometimes think of as a âdo-erâ vs âdebaterâ dichotomy. I think EA strongly emphasizes âdoingâ, whereas Iâm not going to be beating the âdebaterâ allegations anytime soon. I think worldview is upstream of my takes on the ongoing discussions around reaching out to orgs. I think the concept of âwinningâ expressed here is also related to a strong âdoing over debatingâ view.
Making âtruthseekingâ a fundamental value
I think its inherently challenging to think of truth-seeking as a terminal value. Its under-specified, truth-seeking about what? How quickly paint dries? I think it makes more sense to think about constraints requiring truthfulness. Following on from this, I think trying to âimprove epistemicsâ by trying to enforce âhigh standardsâ can be counterproductive because it gets in the way of the natural âmarketplace of ideasâ dynamic that often fuels and incentives good epistemics. The view of âtruth-seekingâ as this kind of quantitative thing that you want really high values of I think can cause confusion in this regard, making people think communities high in âtruth-seekingâ must therefore have âhigh standardsâ.
Chances are the person is using it passive-aggressively, or with the implication that theyâre more truthseeking than someone else. Iâve never seen someone say, âI wasnât being truthseeking enough and changed my approach.â This kinda makes it feel like the main purpose of the word is to be passive-aggressive and act superior.
I think this is often the case. Perhaps related to my more âdebaterâ mentality, it seems to me like people in EA sometimes do something with their criticism where they think they are softening it, but they do so in a way that makes the actual claim insanely confusing. I think âtruth-seekingâ is partial downstream from this, because its not straight-up saying âyouâre being bad faith hereâ and thus feels softer. I wish people would be more âall the way in or all the way outâ. Either stick to just saying someone is wrong or straight-up accuse them of whatever you think they are doing. I think on balance that might mean doing the second one more than people do now, but perhaps doing the ambiguous version less.
Here are my rules of thumb for improving communication on the EA Forum and in similar spaces online:
Say what you mean, as plainly as possible.
Try to use words and expressions that a general audience would understand.
Be more casual and less formal if you think that means more people are more likely to understand what youâre trying to say.
To illustrate abstract concepts, give examples.
Where possible, try to let go of minor details that arenât important to the main point someone is trying to make. Everyone slightly misspeaks (or mis⌠writes?) all the time. Attempts to correct minor details often turn into time-consuming debates that ultimately have little importance. If you really want to correct a minor detail, do so politely, and acknowledge that youâre engaging in nitpicking.
When you donât understand what someone is trying to say, just say that. (And be polite.)
Donât engage in passive-aggressiveness or code insults in jargon or formal language. If someoneâs behaviour is annoying you, tell them itâs annoying you. (If you donât want to do that, then you probably shouldnât try to communicate the same idea in a coded or passive-aggressive way, either.)
If youâre using an uncommon word or using a word that also has a more common definition in an unusual way (such as âtruthseekingâ), please define that word as youâre using it and â if applicable â distinguish it from the more common way the word is used.
Err on the side of spelling out acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. You donât have to spell out âAIâ as âartificial intelligenceâ, but an obscure term like âfull automation of labourâ or âFAOLâ that was made up for one paper should definitely be spelled out.
When referencing specific people or organizations, err on the side of giving a little more context, so that someone who isnât already in the know can more easily understand who or what youâre talking about. For example, instead of just saying âMacAskillâ or âWillâ, say âWill MacAskillâ â just using the full name once per post or comment is plenty. You could also mention someoneâs profession (e.g. âphilosopherâ, âeconomistâ) or the organization theyâre affiliated with (e.g. âOxford Universityâ, âAnthropicâ). For organizations, when it isnât already obvious in context, it might be helpful to give a brief description. Rather than saying, âI donated to New Harvest and still feel like this was a good choiceâ, you could say âI donated to New Harvest (a charity focused on cell cultured meat and similar biotech) and still feel like this was a good choiceâ. The point of all this is to make what you write easy for more people to understand without lots of prior knowledge or lots of Googling.
When in doubt, say it shorter.[1] In my experience, when I take something Iâve written thatâs long and try to cut it down to something short, I usually end up with something a lot clearer and easier to understand than what I originally wrote.
Kindness is fundamental. Maya Angelou said, âAt the end of the day people wonât remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.â Being kind is usually more important than whatever argument youâre having.
(Decided to also publish this as a quick take, since itâs so generally applicable.)
This advice comes from the psychologist Harriet Lernerâs wonderful book Why Wonât You Apologize? â given in the completely different context of close personal relationships. I think it also works here.
âTruthseekingâ is a strange piece of jargon. Iâm not sure what purpose it serves. It seems like the meaning of âtruthseekingâ ambiguates between âpracticing good epistemologyâ and âbeing intellectually honestâ, as you describe. So, why not use one of those terms instead?
One thing that annoys me about the EA Forum (which I previously wrote about here) is that thereâs way too much EA Forum-specific jargon. One negative effect of this is it makes it harder to understand what people are trying to say. Another negative effect is it elevates a lot of interesting conjecture to the level of conventional wisdom. If you have some interesting idea in a blog post or a forum post, and then people are quick to incorporate that into the lingo, youâve made that idea part of the culture, part of the conventional wisdom. And it seems like people do this too easily.
If you see someone using the term âtruthseekingâ on the EA Forum, then:
There is no clear definition of this term anywhere that you can easily Google or search on the forum. There is a vague definition on the Effective Altruism Australia website. There is no entry for âtruthseekingâ in the EA Forum Wiki. The Wikipedia page for truth-seeking says, âTruth-seeking processes allow societies to examine and come to grips with past crimes and atrocities and prevent their future repetition. Truth-seeking often occurs in societies emerging from a period of prolonged conflict or authoritarian rule.[1] The most famous example to date is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, although many other examples also exist.â
To the extent EA Forum users even have a clear definition of this term in their heads, they may be bringing along their own quirky ideas about epistemology or intellectual honesty or whatever. And are those good ideas? Who knows? Probably some are and a lot arenât. Making âtruthseekingâ a fundamental value and then defining âtruthseekingâ in your own quirky way elevates something you read on an obscure blog last year to the level of an idea that has been scrutinized and debated by a diverse array of scholars across the world for decades and stood the test of time. Thatâs a really silly, bad way to decide which ideas are true and which are false (or dubious, or promising, or a mixed bag, or whatever).
Chances are the person is using it passive-aggressively, or with the implication that theyâre more truthseeking than someone else. Iâve never seen someone say, âI wasnât being truthseeking enough and changed my approach.â This kinda makes it feel like the main purpose of the word is to be passive-aggressive and act superior.
So, is this jargon anything but a waste of time?
Very accurate and succinct summary of the issue.
Good point. I think actually there is an entire class of related jargon for which something like the above applies. For example, I think its often a bad idea to say stuff like:
âYouâre being uncharitable.â
âYouâre strawmanning me.â
âCan you please just steelman my position?â
âI donât think you could pass my ITT.â
âYouâre argument is a committing the motte-baily fallacy.â
âYouâre committing the noncentral fallacy.â
And other similar comments. I think clarity issue around some types of jargon are related to your next point. People pickup on ideas that are intuitive but still very rough. This can often mean that the speaker feels super confident in their meaning but it is confusing to the reader because they may interpret these rough ideas differently.
I also feel something similar to what you say where people seem to jump on ideas rather quickly and run with them, whereas my reaction is, donât you want to stress test this a bit more before giving it the full-send? I view this as a significant cultural/âworldview difference that I perceive between myself and a lot of EAs, which I sometimes think of as a âdo-erâ vs âdebaterâ dichotomy. I think EA strongly emphasizes âdoingâ, whereas Iâm not going to be beating the âdebaterâ allegations anytime soon. I think worldview is upstream of my takes on the ongoing discussions around reaching out to orgs. I think the concept of âwinningâ expressed here is also related to a strong âdoing over debatingâ view.
I think its inherently challenging to think of truth-seeking as a terminal value. Its under-specified, truth-seeking about what? How quickly paint dries? I think it makes more sense to think about constraints requiring truthfulness. Following on from this, I think trying to âimprove epistemicsâ by trying to enforce âhigh standardsâ can be counterproductive because it gets in the way of the natural âmarketplace of ideasâ dynamic that often fuels and incentives good epistemics. The view of âtruth-seekingâ as this kind of quantitative thing that you want really high values of I think can cause confusion in this regard, making people think communities high in âtruth-seekingâ must therefore have âhigh standardsâ.
I think this is often the case. Perhaps related to my more âdebaterâ mentality, it seems to me like people in EA sometimes do something with their criticism where they think they are softening it, but they do so in a way that makes the actual claim insanely confusing. I think âtruth-seekingâ is partial downstream from this, because its not straight-up saying âyouâre being bad faith hereâ and thus feels softer. I wish people would be more âall the way in or all the way outâ. Either stick to just saying someone is wrong or straight-up accuse them of whatever you think they are doing. I think on balance that might mean doing the second one more than people do now, but perhaps doing the ambiguous version less.
Here are my rules of thumb for improving communication on the EA Forum and in similar spaces online:
Say what you mean, as plainly as possible.
Try to use words and expressions that a general audience would understand.
Be more casual and less formal if you think that means more people are more likely to understand what youâre trying to say.
To illustrate abstract concepts, give examples.
Where possible, try to let go of minor details that arenât important to the main point someone is trying to make. Everyone slightly misspeaks (or mis⌠writes?) all the time. Attempts to correct minor details often turn into time-consuming debates that ultimately have little importance. If you really want to correct a minor detail, do so politely, and acknowledge that youâre engaging in nitpicking.
When you donât understand what someone is trying to say, just say that. (And be polite.)
Donât engage in passive-aggressiveness or code insults in jargon or formal language. If someoneâs behaviour is annoying you, tell them itâs annoying you. (If you donât want to do that, then you probably shouldnât try to communicate the same idea in a coded or passive-aggressive way, either.)
If youâre using an uncommon word or using a word that also has a more common definition in an unusual way (such as âtruthseekingâ), please define that word as youâre using it and â if applicable â distinguish it from the more common way the word is used.
Err on the side of spelling out acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. You donât have to spell out âAIâ as âartificial intelligenceâ, but an obscure term like âfull automation of labourâ or âFAOLâ that was made up for one paper should definitely be spelled out.
When referencing specific people or organizations, err on the side of giving a little more context, so that someone who isnât already in the know can more easily understand who or what youâre talking about. For example, instead of just saying âMacAskillâ or âWillâ, say âWill MacAskillâ â just using the full name once per post or comment is plenty. You could also mention someoneâs profession (e.g. âphilosopherâ, âeconomistâ) or the organization theyâre affiliated with (e.g. âOxford Universityâ, âAnthropicâ). For organizations, when it isnât already obvious in context, it might be helpful to give a brief description. Rather than saying, âI donated to New Harvest and still feel like this was a good choiceâ, you could say âI donated to New Harvest (a charity focused on cell cultured meat and similar biotech) and still feel like this was a good choiceâ. The point of all this is to make what you write easy for more people to understand without lots of prior knowledge or lots of Googling.
When in doubt, say it shorter.[1] In my experience, when I take something Iâve written thatâs long and try to cut it down to something short, I usually end up with something a lot clearer and easier to understand than what I originally wrote.
Kindness is fundamental. Maya Angelou said, âAt the end of the day people wonât remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.â Being kind is usually more important than whatever argument youâre having.
(Decided to also publish this as a quick take, since itâs so generally applicable.)
This advice comes from the psychologist Harriet Lernerâs wonderful book Why Wonât You Apologize? â given in the completely different context of close personal relationships. I think it also works here.