I would distinguish between poor journalism and not taking a very EA perspective. We shouldn’t conflate the two. It’s worth noting that Future Perfect is inspired by EA, rather than an EA publication. I also think it’s important for the journalists writing to be able to share their own perspective even if it disagrees with the EA consensus. That said, some articles I’ve seen have been overly ideological or unnecessarily polarising and that worries me.
Agreed. I don’t see any “poor journalism” in any of the pieces mentioned. A few of them would be “poor intervention reports” if we chose to judge them by that standard.
I’m not trying to foment any kind of outrage against them and I don’t expect them to change much, I just want to make sure that people don’t treat the content very authoritatively.
I think I’d challenge this goal. If we’re choosing between trying to improve Vox vs trying to discredit Vox, I think EA goals are served better by the former.
1. Vox seems at least somewhat open to change: Matthews and Ezra seem genuinely pretty EA, they went out on a limb to hire Piper, and they’ve sacrificed some readership to maintain EA fidelity. Even if they place less-than-ideal priority on EA goals vs. progressivsim, profit, etc., they still clearly place some weight on pure EA.
2. We’re unlikely to convince Future Perfect’s readers that Future Perfect is bad/wrong and we in EA are right. We can convince core EAs to discredit Vox, but that’s unnecessary—if you read the EA Forum, your primary source of EA info is not Vox.
Bottom line: non-EAs will continue to read Future Perfect no matter what. So let’s make Future Perfect more EA, not less.
If we’re choosing between trying to improve Vox vs trying to discredit Vox, I think EA goals are served better by the former.
Tractability matters. Scott Alexander has been critiquing Vox for years. It might be that improving Vox is a less tractable goal than getting EAs to share their articles less.
they went out on a limb to hire Piper, and they’ve sacrificed some readership to maintain EA fidelity.
My understanding is that Future Perfect is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Without knowing the terms of their funding, I think it’s hard to ascribe either virtue or vice to Vox. For example, if the Rockefeller Foundation is paying them per content item in the “Future Perfect” vertical, I could ascribe vice to Vox by saying that they are churning out subpar EA content in order to improve their bottom line.
I would distinguish between poor journalism and not taking a very EA perspective. We shouldn’t conflate the two. It’s worth noting that Future Perfect is inspired by EA, rather than an EA publication. I also think it’s important for the journalists writing to be able to share their own perspective even if it disagrees with the EA consensus. That said, some articles I’ve seen have been overly ideological or unnecessarily polarising and that worries me.
Agreed. I don’t see any “poor journalism” in any of the pieces mentioned. A few of them would be “poor intervention reports” if we chose to judge them by that standard.
“Finding the best ways to do good” denotes intervention reporting.
I’m not trying to foment any kind of outrage against them and I don’t expect them to change much, I just want to make sure that people don’t treat the content very authoritatively.
I think I’d challenge this goal. If we’re choosing between trying to improve Vox vs trying to discredit Vox, I think EA goals are served better by the former.
1. Vox seems at least somewhat open to change: Matthews and Ezra seem genuinely pretty EA, they went out on a limb to hire Piper, and they’ve sacrificed some readership to maintain EA fidelity. Even if they place less-than-ideal priority on EA goals vs. progressivsim, profit, etc., they still clearly place some weight on pure EA.
2. We’re unlikely to convince Future Perfect’s readers that Future Perfect is bad/wrong and we in EA are right. We can convince core EAs to discredit Vox, but that’s unnecessary—if you read the EA Forum, your primary source of EA info is not Vox.
Bottom line: non-EAs will continue to read Future Perfect no matter what. So let’s make Future Perfect more EA, not less.
Tractability matters. Scott Alexander has been critiquing Vox for years. It might be that improving Vox is a less tractable goal than getting EAs to share their articles less.
My understanding is that Future Perfect is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Without knowing the terms of their funding, I think it’s hard to ascribe either virtue or vice to Vox. For example, if the Rockefeller Foundation is paying them per content item in the “Future Perfect” vertical, I could ascribe vice to Vox by saying that they are churning out subpar EA content in order to improve their bottom line.