I’m not sure I fully understand what you’re advocating. You talk about “only selectively engag[ing] with criticism” but I’m not sure whether you are in favor of it or against it. FWIW, this post is largely meant to help understand why I only selectively engage with criticism.
I agree that “we should be skeptical of our stories about why we do things, even after we try to correct for this.” I’m not sure that the reasons I’ve given are the true ones, but they are my best guess. I note that the reasons I give here aren’t necessarily very different from the reasons others making similar transitions would give privately.
I also agree that there is a significant risk that my views will calcify. I worry about this a fair amount, and I am interested in potential solutions, but at this point I believe that public discourse is not promising as a potential solution, for reasons outlined above. I think there is a bit of a false dichotomy between “engage in public discourse” and “let one’s views calcify”; unfortunately I think the former does little to prevent the latter.
I don’t understand the claim that “The principles section is an outline of a potential future straightjacket.” Which of the principles in that section do you have in mind?
Whoops, I somehow didn’t see this until now. Scattered EA discourse, shrug.
I am in support of only engaging selectively.
I also agree that there is a significant risk that my views will calcify. I worry about this a fair amount, and I am interested in potential solutions,
great!
I think there is a bit of a false dichotomy between “engage in public discourse” and “let one’s views calcify”; unfortunately I think the former does little to prevent the latter.
agreed
I don’t understand the claim that “The principles section is an outline of a potential future straightjacket.” Which of the principles in that section do you have in mind?
the whole thing. Principles are better as descriptions and not prescriptions :)
WRT preventing views from calcifying, I think it is very very important to actively cultivate something similar to
“But we ran those conversations with the explicit rule that one could talk nonsensically and vaguely, but without criticism unless you intended to talk accurately and sensibly. We could try out ideas that were half-baked or quarter-baked or not baked at all, and just talk and listen and try them again.” -Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate, founding father of the AI field
I’ve been researching top and breakout performance and this sort of thing keeps coming up again and again. Fortunately, creative reasoning is not magic. It has been studied and has some parameters that can be intentionally inculcated.
And I recommend skimming one of Edward deBono’s books, such as six thinking hats. He outlined much of the sort of reasoning of 0 to 1, the Lean Startup, and others way back in the early nineties. It may be that openPhil is already having such conversations internally. In which case, great! That would make me much more bullish on the idea that openPhil has a chance at outsize impact. My main proxy metric is an Umeshism: if you never output any batshit crazy ideas your process is way too conservative.
The principles were meant as descriptions, not prescriptions.
I’m quite sympathetic to the idea expressed by your Herbert Simon quote. This is part of what I was getting at when I stated: “I think that one of the best ways to learn is to share one’s impressions, even (especially) when they might be badly wrong. I wish that public discourse could include more low-caution exploration, without the risks that currently come with such things.” But because the risks are what they are, I’ve concluded that public discourse is currently the wrong venue for this sort of thing, and it indeed makes more sense in the context of more private discussions. I suspect many others have reached a similar conclusion; I think it would be a mistake to infer someone’s attitude toward low-stakes brainstorming from their public communications.
I think it would be a mistake to infer someone’s attitude toward low-stakes brainstorming from their public communications.
Most people wear their hearts on their sleeve to a greater degree than they might realize. Public conservatism of discourse seems a pretty reasonable proxy measure of private conservatism of discourse in most cases. As I mentioned, I am very happy to hear evidence this is not the case for openPhil.
I do not think the model of creativity as a deliberate, trainable set of practices is widely known, so I go out of my way to bring it up WRT projects that are important.
Thanks for the thoughts!
I’m not sure I fully understand what you’re advocating. You talk about “only selectively engag[ing] with criticism” but I’m not sure whether you are in favor of it or against it. FWIW, this post is largely meant to help understand why I only selectively engage with criticism.
I agree that “we should be skeptical of our stories about why we do things, even after we try to correct for this.” I’m not sure that the reasons I’ve given are the true ones, but they are my best guess. I note that the reasons I give here aren’t necessarily very different from the reasons others making similar transitions would give privately.
I also agree that there is a significant risk that my views will calcify. I worry about this a fair amount, and I am interested in potential solutions, but at this point I believe that public discourse is not promising as a potential solution, for reasons outlined above. I think there is a bit of a false dichotomy between “engage in public discourse” and “let one’s views calcify”; unfortunately I think the former does little to prevent the latter.
I don’t understand the claim that “The principles section is an outline of a potential future straightjacket.” Which of the principles in that section do you have in mind?
Whoops, I somehow didn’t see this until now. Scattered EA discourse, shrug.
I am in support of only engaging selectively.
great!
agreed
the whole thing. Principles are better as descriptions and not prescriptions :)
WRT preventing views from calcifying, I think it is very very important to actively cultivate something similar to
I’ve been researching top and breakout performance and this sort of thing keeps coming up again and again. Fortunately, creative reasoning is not magic. It has been studied and has some parameters that can be intentionally inculcated.
This talk gives a brief overview: https://vimeo.com/89936101
And I recommend skimming one of Edward deBono’s books, such as six thinking hats. He outlined much of the sort of reasoning of 0 to 1, the Lean Startup, and others way back in the early nineties. It may be that openPhil is already having such conversations internally. In which case, great! That would make me much more bullish on the idea that openPhil has a chance at outsize impact. My main proxy metric is an Umeshism: if you never output any batshit crazy ideas your process is way too conservative.
The principles were meant as descriptions, not prescriptions.
I’m quite sympathetic to the idea expressed by your Herbert Simon quote. This is part of what I was getting at when I stated: “I think that one of the best ways to learn is to share one’s impressions, even (especially) when they might be badly wrong. I wish that public discourse could include more low-caution exploration, without the risks that currently come with such things.” But because the risks are what they are, I’ve concluded that public discourse is currently the wrong venue for this sort of thing, and it indeed makes more sense in the context of more private discussions. I suspect many others have reached a similar conclusion; I think it would be a mistake to infer someone’s attitude toward low-stakes brainstorming from their public communications.
Most people wear their hearts on their sleeve to a greater degree than they might realize. Public conservatism of discourse seems a pretty reasonable proxy measure of private conservatism of discourse in most cases. As I mentioned, I am very happy to hear evidence this is not the case for openPhil.
I do not think the model of creativity as a deliberate, trainable set of practices is widely known, so I go out of my way to bring it up WRT projects that are important.