See my reply to Will above. It’s a fair point that it’s not very helpful to spectators (besides indicating that the claim referred to should perhaps not be taken at face value) but my intention was to reply to Halstead rather than the audience.
In my view, it would be condescending if I was referring to most people, but not in this case. My point is that someone who has written about climate issues more than once in the past and who is considered something of an authority on climate issues within EA can be expected to have basic background knowledge on climate topics.
If we are going to have a hierarchical culture led by “thought leaders”, I think we should at least hold them to a certain standard.
I think Halstead knows what degrowth advocates claim about degrowth (that it won’t have built-in humanitarian costs). And I think he disagrees with them, which isn’t the same as not understanding their arguments.
Imagine people arguing whether to invade Iraq in the year following the 9/11 attacks. One of them points out that invading the country will involve enormous built-in humanitarian costs. Their interlocutor replies:
“Your characterization of an Iraq invasion as having “enormous humanitarian costs” “built in” is flatly untrue in a way that is obvious to anyone who has read any Iraq invasion literature, e.g. Rumsfeld and Powell.”
The second person may genuinely see Rumsfeld and Powell as experts worth listening to. The first person may see their arguments as clearly wrong, and not even worth addressing (if they think it’s common sense that war will incur humanitarian costs).
The first person isn’t necessarily right — in 2002, there was lots of disagreement between experts on the outcome of an Iraq invasion! — but I wouldn’t conclude that their words are “flatly untrue” or that they lack “basic background knowledge”.
As a moderator: the “basic background knowledge” point is skirting the boundaries of the Forum’s norms; even if you didn’t intend to condescend, I found it condescending, for the reasons I note in my other reply.
The initial comment — which claims that Halstead is misrepresenting a position, when “he understands and disagrees” is also possible — also seems uncharitable.
I do see this charitable reading as an understandable thing to miss, given that everyone is leaving brief comments about a complex question and there isn’t much context. But I also think there are ways to say “I don’t think you’re taking position X seriously enough” without saying “you are lying about the existence of position X, please stop lying”.
But it is basic background knowledge, and that point needs to be made clear to those less familiar with the topic! This isn’t an issue of understanding and disagreeing, as demonstrated by his non-sequitur about COVID if nothing else.
If, for instance, someone who has written about AI more than once argues that the Chinese government funding AI research for solely humanitarian reasons, you have two choices: they are being honest but ignorant (which is unlikely, embarrassing for them and worrying for any community that treats them as an authority) or they are being dishonest (which is bad for everyone). There is no “charitable” position here.
I understand and agree with the discourse norms here, but if someone is demonstrably, repeatedly, unequivocally acting in bad faith then others must be able to call that out.
It is basic background knowledge that degrowth literature exists (which John knows), it is not basic background knowledge that we “know” that we could implement degrowth without major humanitarian consequences as degrowth has never been demonstrated at global scale. The opposite is not true either (so you might characterize Halstead as over-confident).
Degrowth is not a strategy we could clearly implement to tackle climate challenge (we do not know whether it is politically or techno-economically feasible and one can plausibly be quite skeptical) and we do not know whether it could be implemented without significant humanitarian consequences, a couple of green thinkers finding it feasible and desirable is not sufficient evidence to speak of “knowing”.
If, for instance, someone who has written about AI more than once argues that the Chinese government funding AI research for solely humanitarian reasons...
I think there are a bunch of examples we could use here, which fall along a spectrum of “believability” or something like that.
Where the unbelievable end of the spectrum is e.g. “China has never imprisoned a Uyghur who wasn’t an active terrorist”, and the believable end of the spectrum is e.g. “gravity is what makes objects fall”.
If someone argues that objects fall because of something something the luminiferous aether, it seems really unlikely that “they have a background in physics but just disagree about gravity” is the right explanation.
If someone argues that China actually imprisons many non-terrorist Uyghurs, it seems really likely that “they have a background in the Chinese government’s claims but just disagree with the Chinese government” is the right explanation.
So what about someone who argues that degrowth is very likely to lead to “enormous humanitarian costs”? How likely is it that “they have a background in the claims of Hickel et al. but disagree” is the right explanation, vs. something like “they’ve never read Hickel” or “they believe Hickel is right but are lying”?
Moreover, is it “basic background knowledge” that degrowth would not be very likely to lead to “enormous humanitarian costs”?
What you think of those questions seems to depend on how you feel about the degrowth question generally. To some people, it seems perfectly believable that we could realistically achieve degrowth without enormous humanitarian costs. To other people, this seems unbelievable.
I see Halstead as being on the “unbelievable” side and you as being on the “believable” side. Given that there are two sides to the question, with some number of reasonable scholars on each side, Halstead would ideally hedge his language (“degrowth would likely have enormous humanitarian costs” rather than “built-in feature”). And you’d ideally hedge your language (“fails to address reasonable arguments from people like Hickel” rather than “flatly untrue in a way that is obvious”).
*****
I cared more about your reply than Halstead’s comment because, while neither person is doing the ideal hedge thing, your comment was more rude/aggressive than Halstead’s.
(I could imagine someone reading his comment as insulting to the authors, but I personally read it as “he thinks the authors are deliberately making a tradeoff of one value for another” rather than “he thinks the authors support something that is clearly monstrous”.)
To me, the situation reads as one person making contentious claim X, and the other saying “X is flatly wrong in a way that is obvious to anyone who reads contentious author Y, stop mischaracterizing the positions of people like author Y” — when the first person never mentioned author Y.
Perhaps the first person should have mentioned author Y somewhere, if only to say “I disagree with them” — in this case, author Y is pretty famous for their views — but even so, a better response is “I think X is wrong because of the points made by author Y”.
*****
I’d feel the same way even if someone were making some contentious statement about EA. And I hope that I’d respond to e.g. “effective altruism neglects systemic change” with something like “I think article X shows this isn’t true, why are you saying this?”
I’d feel differently if that person were posting the same kinds of comments frequently, and never responding to anyone’s follow-up questions or counterarguments. Given your initial comment, maybe that’s how you feel about Halstead + degrowth? (Though if that’s the case, I still think the burden of proof is on the person accusing another of bad faith, and they should link to other cases of the person failing to engage.)
See my reply to Will above. It’s a fair point that it’s not very helpful to spectators (besides indicating that the claim referred to should perhaps not be taken at face value) but my intention was to reply to Halstead rather than the audience.
In my view, it would be condescending if I was referring to most people, but not in this case. My point is that someone who has written about climate issues more than once in the past and who is considered something of an authority on climate issues within EA can be expected to have basic background knowledge on climate topics.
If we are going to have a hierarchical culture led by “thought leaders”, I think we should at least hold them to a certain standard.
I think Halstead knows what degrowth advocates claim about degrowth (that it won’t have built-in humanitarian costs). And I think he disagrees with them, which isn’t the same as not understanding their arguments.
Imagine people arguing whether to invade Iraq in the year following the 9/11 attacks. One of them points out that invading the country will involve enormous built-in humanitarian costs. Their interlocutor replies:
“Your characterization of an Iraq invasion as having “enormous humanitarian costs” “built in” is flatly untrue in a way that is obvious to anyone who has read any Iraq invasion literature, e.g. Rumsfeld and Powell.”
The second person may genuinely see Rumsfeld and Powell as experts worth listening to. The first person may see their arguments as clearly wrong, and not even worth addressing (if they think it’s common sense that war will incur humanitarian costs).
The first person isn’t necessarily right — in 2002, there was lots of disagreement between experts on the outcome of an Iraq invasion! — but I wouldn’t conclude that their words are “flatly untrue” or that they lack “basic background knowledge”.
As a moderator: the “basic background knowledge” point is skirting the boundaries of the Forum’s norms; even if you didn’t intend to condescend, I found it condescending, for the reasons I note in my other reply.
The initial comment — which claims that Halstead is misrepresenting a position, when “he understands and disagrees” is also possible — also seems uncharitable.
I do see this charitable reading as an understandable thing to miss, given that everyone is leaving brief comments about a complex question and there isn’t much context. But I also think there are ways to say “I don’t think you’re taking position X seriously enough” without saying “you are lying about the existence of position X, please stop lying”.
But it is basic background knowledge, and that point needs to be made clear to those less familiar with the topic! This isn’t an issue of understanding and disagreeing, as demonstrated by his non-sequitur about COVID if nothing else.
If, for instance, someone who has written about AI more than once argues that the Chinese government funding AI research for solely humanitarian reasons, you have two choices: they are being honest but ignorant (which is unlikely, embarrassing for them and worrying for any community that treats them as an authority) or they are being dishonest (which is bad for everyone). There is no “charitable” position here.
I understand and agree with the discourse norms here, but if someone is demonstrably, repeatedly, unequivocally acting in bad faith then others must be able to call that out.
It is basic background knowledge that degrowth literature exists (which John knows), it is not basic background knowledge that we “know” that we could implement degrowth without major humanitarian consequences as degrowth has never been demonstrated at global scale. The opposite is not true either (so you might characterize Halstead as over-confident).
Degrowth is not a strategy we could clearly implement to tackle climate challenge (we do not know whether it is politically or techno-economically feasible and one can plausibly be quite skeptical) and we do not know whether it could be implemented without significant humanitarian consequences, a couple of green thinkers finding it feasible and desirable is not sufficient evidence to speak of “knowing”.
I think there are a bunch of examples we could use here, which fall along a spectrum of “believability” or something like that.
Where the unbelievable end of the spectrum is e.g. “China has never imprisoned a Uyghur who wasn’t an active terrorist”, and the believable end of the spectrum is e.g. “gravity is what makes objects fall”.
If someone argues that objects fall because of something something the luminiferous aether, it seems really unlikely that “they have a background in physics but just disagree about gravity” is the right explanation.
If someone argues that China actually imprisons many non-terrorist Uyghurs, it seems really likely that “they have a background in the Chinese government’s claims but just disagree with the Chinese government” is the right explanation.
So what about someone who argues that degrowth is very likely to lead to “enormous humanitarian costs”? How likely is it that “they have a background in the claims of Hickel et al. but disagree” is the right explanation, vs. something like “they’ve never read Hickel” or “they believe Hickel is right but are lying”?
Moreover, is it “basic background knowledge” that degrowth would not be very likely to lead to “enormous humanitarian costs”?
What you think of those questions seems to depend on how you feel about the degrowth question generally. To some people, it seems perfectly believable that we could realistically achieve degrowth without enormous humanitarian costs. To other people, this seems unbelievable.
I see Halstead as being on the “unbelievable” side and you as being on the “believable” side. Given that there are two sides to the question, with some number of reasonable scholars on each side, Halstead would ideally hedge his language (“degrowth would likely have enormous humanitarian costs” rather than “built-in feature”). And you’d ideally hedge your language (“fails to address reasonable arguments from people like Hickel” rather than “flatly untrue in a way that is obvious”).
*****
I cared more about your reply than Halstead’s comment because, while neither person is doing the ideal hedge thing, your comment was more rude/aggressive than Halstead’s.
(I could imagine someone reading his comment as insulting to the authors, but I personally read it as “he thinks the authors are deliberately making a tradeoff of one value for another” rather than “he thinks the authors support something that is clearly monstrous”.)
To me, the situation reads as one person making contentious claim X, and the other saying “X is flatly wrong in a way that is obvious to anyone who reads contentious author Y, stop mischaracterizing the positions of people like author Y” — when the first person never mentioned author Y.
Perhaps the first person should have mentioned author Y somewhere, if only to say “I disagree with them” — in this case, author Y is pretty famous for their views — but even so, a better response is “I think X is wrong because of the points made by author Y”.
*****
I’d feel the same way even if someone were making some contentious statement about EA. And I hope that I’d respond to e.g. “effective altruism neglects systemic change” with something like “I think article X shows this isn’t true, why are you saying this?”
I’d feel differently if that person were posting the same kinds of comments frequently, and never responding to anyone’s follow-up questions or counterarguments. Given your initial comment, maybe that’s how you feel about Halstead + degrowth? (Though if that’s the case, I still think the burden of proof is on the person accusing another of bad faith, and they should link to other cases of the person failing to engage.)