I didn’t really reflect on this much with the previous posts, but reading your current post sheds some light: the vagueness is not a bug, from your perspective, it’s a corollary of trying to make your content really hard for people to take issue with. And I think therein lies the problem. I think of specificity, falsifiability, and concreteness as keys to furthering discourse and helping actually converge on key truths and correcting error. By glorifying the rejection of these virtues, I think your writing does a disservice to public discourse.
If engagement is any indication, then people really thirst for specific, concrete content. But that’s not necessarily in contradiction with Holden’s point, since his goal isn’t to generate engagement. In fact comments engagement can even be viewed negatively in his framework because it means more effort necessary to respond to and keep up with comments.
Just my rough impression, but I find that controversial or flawed posts get comments, whereas posts that make a solid, concrete, well-argued point tend to not generate much discussion. So I don’t think this is a good measure for the value of the post to the community.
Thinking about what to call this phenomenon because it seems like an important aspect of discourse. Namely, making no claims but only distinctions, which generates no arguments. This was a distinct flavor to Superintelligence, I think intentionally to create a framework within which to have a dialog absent the usual contentious claims. This was good for that particular use case, but I think that deployed indiscriminately it leads to a kind of big tent approach inimical to real progress.
I think potentially it is the right thing for OpenPhil to currently be doing since they are first trying to figure out how the world actually is with pilot grants and research methodology testing etc. Good to not let it infect your epistemology permanently though. Suggested counter force: internal non-public betting market.
(1) Frustrating vagueness and seas of generality: This post, as well as many other posts you have recently written (such as http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/radical-empathy , http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/worldview-diversification , http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/update-how-were-thinking-about-openness-and-information-sharing , http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/22/front-loading-personal-giving-year/) struck me as fairly vague. Even posts where you were trying to be concrete (e.g., http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/three-key-issues-ive-changed-my-mind-about , http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/potential-risks-advanced-artificial-intelligence-philanthropic-opportunity) were really hard for me to parse and get a grip on your precise arguments.
I didn’t really reflect on this much with the previous posts, but reading your current post sheds some light: the vagueness is not a bug, from your perspective, it’s a corollary of trying to make your content really hard for people to take issue with. And I think therein lies the problem. I think of specificity, falsifiability, and concreteness as keys to furthering discourse and helping actually converge on key truths and correcting error. By glorifying the rejection of these virtues, I think your writing does a disservice to public discourse.
For a point of contrast, here are some posts from GiveWell and Open Phil that I feel were sufficiently specific that they added value to a conversation: http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/06/why-i-mostly-believe-in-worms/ , http://blog.givewell.org/2017/01/04/how-thin-the-reed-generalizing-from-worms-at-work/ , http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/initial-grants-support-corporate-cage-free-reforms , http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/12/amf-population-ethics/ -- notice how most of these posts make a large number of very concrete claims and highlight their opposition to very specific other parties, which makes them targets of criticism and insult, but really helps delineate an issue and pushes conversations forward. I’m interested in seeing more of this sort of stuff and less of overly cautious diplomatic posts like yours.
One point to add: the frustratingly vague posts tend to get FEWER comments than the specific, concrete posts.
From my list, the posts I identified as clearly vague:
http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/radical-empathy got 1 comment (a question that hasn’t been answered)
http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/worldview-diversification got 1 comment (a single sentence praising the post)
http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/update-how-were-thinking-about-openness-and-information-sharing got 6 comments
http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/22/front-loading-personal-giving-year/ got 8 comments
In contrast, the posts I identified as sufficiently specific (even though they tended on the fairly technical side)
http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/06/why-i-mostly-believe-in-worms/ got 17 comments
http://blog.givewell.org/2017/01/04/how-thin-the-reed-generalizing-from-worms-at-work/ got 14 comments
http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/initial-grants-support-corporate-cage-free-reforms got 27 comments
http://blog.givewell.org/2016/12/12/amf-population-ethics/ got 7 comments
If engagement is any indication, then people really thirst for specific, concrete content. But that’s not necessarily in contradiction with Holden’s point, since his goal isn’t to generate engagement. In fact comments engagement can even be viewed negatively in his framework because it means more effort necessary to respond to and keep up with comments.
Just my rough impression, but I find that controversial or flawed posts get comments, whereas posts that make a solid, concrete, well-argued point tend to not generate much discussion. So I don’t think this is a good measure for the value of the post to the community.
Thinking about what to call this phenomenon because it seems like an important aspect of discourse. Namely, making no claims but only distinctions, which generates no arguments. This was a distinct flavor to Superintelligence, I think intentionally to create a framework within which to have a dialog absent the usual contentious claims. This was good for that particular use case, but I think that deployed indiscriminately it leads to a kind of big tent approach inimical to real progress.
I think potentially it is the right thing for OpenPhil to currently be doing since they are first trying to figure out how the world actually is with pilot grants and research methodology testing etc. Good to not let it infect your epistemology permanently though. Suggested counter force: internal non-public betting market.
Or taxonomies. Hence: The Taxoplasma of Ra.
(Sorry, I should post this in DEAM, not here. I don’t even understand this Ra thing.)
But I really like this concept!