I really wanted to like this post, because I agree with the fact that “declining epistemics” is rarely a complaint that is made in good faith, and is often harmful when compared to actually asking about the issues. However,the problem that the [high-decoupler epistemic purists|LessWrong crowd] seem to have is a different one than you imply—that they do ignore impactful and important emotional and social factors which matter, and instead focus on only easily assessed object level issues. (A version of the McNamara fallacy.)
You correctly point out that “in a real utilitarian calculus, things outside the object level can matter much more than the object level itself,” which I strongly agree with—but then explicitly decide not to do any of that calculus, and appeal to emotion—not to say that you think it matters more than the object level factors in certain cases, but to say that you feel like it should.
In an ideal situation I would definitely try and outline the uses I take issue with, and provide arguments from both sides. At the same time this is my first top level post, and I’ve held back on posting something similar multiple times due to the high level of rigor standard here.
I suppose I decided that when it comes to community building especially, intuitions, moods and gut feelings are something EA should be aware of and respond to, even if they can’t always be explained rationally. My plan is to develop more on this idea in subsequent posts.
I understand, and both think the bar for people posting should be lower, and that people’s own standards for posting should be higher. I definitely appreciate that writing is hard, and it’s certainly something I still work on. The biggest piece of advice I’d have is to write drafts, share and get feedback on them, and plan to take significant amounts of time to write good posts—because thinking and revising your thoughts takes time, as does polishing writing.
I suspect that the amount of effort you put into drafting and thinking about posts, distributed slightly differently, would result in some very good posts, and the best thing to do is to draft things and then share them with a small group of people, and decide then whether to put in effort or to abandon them—rather than preemptively not posting without getting feedback.
I really wanted to like this post, because I agree with the fact that “declining epistemics” is rarely a complaint that is made in good faith, and is often harmful when compared to actually asking about the issues. However,the problem that the [high-decoupler epistemic purists|LessWrong crowd] seem to have is a different one than you imply—that they do ignore impactful and important emotional and social factors which matter, and instead focus on only easily assessed object level issues. (A version of the McNamara fallacy.)
You correctly point out that “in a real utilitarian calculus, things outside the object level can matter much more than the object level itself,” which I strongly agree with—but then explicitly decide not to do any of that calculus, and appeal to emotion—not to say that you think it matters more than the object level factors in certain cases, but to say that you feel like it should.
I appreciate the feedback!
In an ideal situation I would definitely try and outline the uses I take issue with, and provide arguments from both sides. At the same time this is my first top level post, and I’ve held back on posting something similar multiple times due to the high level of rigor standard here.
I suppose I decided that when it comes to community building especially, intuitions, moods and gut feelings are something EA should be aware of and respond to, even if they can’t always be explained rationally. My plan is to develop more on this idea in subsequent posts.
I understand, and both think the bar for people posting should be lower, and that people’s own standards for posting should be higher. I definitely appreciate that writing is hard, and it’s certainly something I still work on. The biggest piece of advice I’d have is to write drafts, share and get feedback on them, and plan to take significant amounts of time to write good posts—because thinking and revising your thoughts takes time, as does polishing writing.
That’s the stance I took for a long time, and unfortunately I posted nothing because I’m busy and I guess I don’t value drafting posts that much.
Realistically I may not be suited to posting here.
I suspect that the amount of effort you put into drafting and thinking about posts, distributed slightly differently, would result in some very good posts, and the best thing to do is to draft things and then share them with a small group of people, and decide then whether to put in effort or to abandon them—rather than preemptively not posting without getting feedback.