[Writing from my hotel room at EAG at 5am because my body is on UK time and I can’t sleep. Hopefully my reasoning isn’t too wonky]
Hello Ozzie. Thanks very much for writing this. It brings lots of nuance. I agree this conversation is easier to have at an abstract level. I wanted to make a few points.
One early reviewer critiqued this post saying that they didn’t believe that discomfort was a problem
I’ve been struck at how often I’ve seen or heard people say something like this, i.e., that people do feel free to make critiques on important issues. For a community of people that prizes itself on avoiding cognitive biases, this seems a real blind spot. It seems that some people mistakenly infer from the fact they don’t feel uncomfortable making critiques, and they see other people doing it, that no one feels awkward about this and that and everything important gets said. In fact, I strongly suspect there are unrecognised power dynamics at play. If you’re in a position of power, eg control funding, and work with people who mostly agree with you, those people may feel psychologically safe enough to give you pushback. However others—who may have more important disagreements with you—might not feel comfortable saying anything. This would falsely create the impressions both that people in general feel free to make critiques and that everyone agrees with you, leading to overconfidence.
Second, you ask the question of who is uncomfortable critiquing who. This raises the further question, Why? Again, I suspect this has to relate to power and interpersonal awkwardness. It’s much easier to object to global health and wellbeing interventions, because you can focus on the evidence. It’s less personal. But for longtermism stuff, it’s more about people and their ideas and how well they seem to be running a project. When you add in the small, interconnected funder ecosystem, the incentives to criticise longtermism stuff are pretty weak: there is little to gain, but potentially much to lose, from objecting, so you’d expect less criticism. I speak to lots of people who don’t find longtermism particularly plausible but conclude (I think rationally) it’s not smart for them to say anything.
Third, as a personal note, I’ve found, and find, critiquing other bits of EA deeply uncomfortable. People might be surprised by this, because (1) I’ve done quite a bit of it and (2) I may give off the impression of being very confident and enjoying disagreement (I’m a 6ft5 male with a philosophy PhD) but (even?) I consistently find it really difficult and stressful. I do it because I think the issues are too important. But it’s often psychologically unpleasant. And it’s genuinely very difficult to do without annoying people, even when you really don’t want to (I don’t think I’ve been great at this in the past but hope I’m improving). Doing good better relies on us challenging our current approaches, which is why it’s so important to recognise how hard it is to make critiques and to think about what could be tweaked to improve this.
[Writing from my hotel room at EAG at 5am because my body is on UK time and I can’t sleep. Hopefully my reasoning isn’t too wonky]
Hello Ozzie. Thanks very much for writing this. It brings lots of nuance. I agree this conversation is easier to have at an abstract level. I wanted to make a few points.
I’ve been struck at how often I’ve seen or heard people say something like this, i.e., that people do feel free to make critiques on important issues. For a community of people that prizes itself on avoiding cognitive biases, this seems a real blind spot. It seems that some people mistakenly infer from the fact they don’t feel uncomfortable making critiques, and they see other people doing it, that no one feels awkward about this and that and everything important gets said. In fact, I strongly suspect there are unrecognised power dynamics at play. If you’re in a position of power, eg control funding, and work with people who mostly agree with you, those people may feel psychologically safe enough to give you pushback. However others—who may have more important disagreements with you—might not feel comfortable saying anything. This would falsely create the impressions both that people in general feel free to make critiques and that everyone agrees with you, leading to overconfidence.
Second, you ask the question of who is uncomfortable critiquing who. This raises the further question, Why? Again, I suspect this has to relate to power and interpersonal awkwardness. It’s much easier to object to global health and wellbeing interventions, because you can focus on the evidence. It’s less personal. But for longtermism stuff, it’s more about people and their ideas and how well they seem to be running a project. When you add in the small, interconnected funder ecosystem, the incentives to criticise longtermism stuff are pretty weak: there is little to gain, but potentially much to lose, from objecting, so you’d expect less criticism. I speak to lots of people who don’t find longtermism particularly plausible but conclude (I think rationally) it’s not smart for them to say anything.
Third, as a personal note, I’ve found, and find, critiquing other bits of EA deeply uncomfortable. People might be surprised by this, because (1) I’ve done quite a bit of it and (2) I may give off the impression of being very confident and enjoying disagreement (I’m a 6ft5 male with a philosophy PhD) but (even?) I consistently find it really difficult and stressful. I do it because I think the issues are too important. But it’s often psychologically unpleasant. And it’s genuinely very difficult to do without annoying people, even when you really don’t want to (I don’t think I’ve been great at this in the past but hope I’m improving). Doing good better relies on us challenging our current approaches, which is why it’s so important to recognise how hard it is to make critiques and to think about what could be tweaked to improve this.