I agree with most of what you say other than it being reasonable for some people to have acted in self-interest.
While I do think it is unavoidable that there will be attempts to shut down certain ideas and arguments out of the self-interest of some EAs, I think it’s important that we have a very low tolerance of this.
I agree with most of what you say other than it being reasonable for some people to have acted in self-interest.
I intended to present the-self interest part as bad, sorry.
While I do think it is unavoidable that there will be attempts to shut down certain ideas and arguments out of the self-interest of some EAs, I think it’s important that we have a very low tolerance of this.
I agree, but I don’t see this as ‘shutting down’ arguments. Can I just check that I am not misreading what happened?
We were told by some that our critique is invalid because the community is already very cognitively diverse and in fact welcomes criticism. They also told us that there is no TUA, and if the approach does exist then it certainly isn’t dominant. It was these same people that then tried to prevent this paper from being published. They did so largely out of fear that publishing might offend key funders who are aligned with the TUA.
These individuals—often senior scholars within the field—told us in private that they were concerned that any critique of central figures in EA would result in an inability to secure funding from EA sources, such as OpenPhilanthropy. We don’t know if these concerns are warranted. Nonetheless, any field that operates under such a chilling effect is neither free nor fair. Having a handful of wealthy donors and their advisors dictate the evolution of an entire field is bad epistemics at best and corruption at worst.
The greatest predictor of how negatively a reviewer would react to the paper was their personal identification with EA. Writing a critical piece should not incur negative consequences on one’s career options, personal life, and social connections in a community that is supposedly great at inviting and accepting criticism.
My interpretation from this was that they were strongly discouraged from publishing the paper by people who disagreed with what the paper was claiming (who may or may not have also been self-interested in maintaining their funding) and/or predicted negative outcomes from the work.
They were still able to publish the paper and participate in the community. No-one was ‘shut down’ in the sense that someone forced them not to publish it (though they may have strongly advised against it). Is this correct? Maybe I misunderstand what “prevent this paper from being published” actually entailed.
I think I interpreted this as ‘pressure’ to not publish, and my definition of ‘shutting down ideas’ includes pressure / strong advice against publishing them, while yours is restricted to forcing people not to publish them.
I agree with most of what you say other than it being reasonable for some people to have acted in self-interest.
While I do think it is unavoidable that there will be attempts to shut down certain ideas and arguments out of the self-interest of some EAs, I think it’s important that we have a very low tolerance of this.
Thanks for commenting :)
I intended to present the-self interest part as bad, sorry.
I agree, but I don’t see this as ‘shutting down’ arguments. Can I just check that I am not misreading what happened?
My interpretation from this was that they were strongly discouraged from publishing the paper by people who disagreed with what the paper was claiming (who may or may not have also been self-interested in maintaining their funding) and/or predicted negative outcomes from the work.
They were still able to publish the paper and participate in the community. No-one was ‘shut down’ in the sense that someone forced them not to publish it (though they may have strongly advised against it). Is this correct? Maybe I misunderstand what “prevent this paper from being published” actually entailed.
Ah okay.
I think I interpreted this as ‘pressure’ to not publish, and my definition of ‘shutting down ideas’ includes pressure / strong advice against publishing them, while yours is restricted to forcing people not to publish them.