Issue 2: Running critical pieces by the people you’re criticizing is necessary, if you want a good epistemic culture. (That said, waiting indefinitely for them to respond is not required. I think “wait a week” is probably a reasonable norm)
Reasons and considerations:
a) they may have already seen and engaged with a similar form of criticism before. If that’s the case, it should be the critic’s responsibility to read up on it, and make sure their criticism is saying something new. Or, that it’s addressing the latest, best thoughts on the part of the person-being-criticized. (See Eliezer’s 4 layers of criticism)
b) you may not understand their reasons well. Especially with something off-the-cuff on facebook. The principle of charity is crucial because our natural tendency is to engage with weaker versions of ideas.
c) you may be wrong about things. Because our kind have trouble cooperating because we tend to criticize a lot, it’s important for criticism of Things We Are Currently Trying to Coordinate On to be made as-accurate-as-possible through private channels before unleashing the storm.
Controversial things are intrinsically “public facing” (see: Scott Alexander’s post on Trump that he specifically asked people not to share and disabled comments on, but which Ann Coulter ended up retweeting). Because it is controversial it may end up being people’s first exposure to Effective Altruism.
Similar to my issue 1, I think Sarah intended this post as tit-for-tat punishment for EA Establishment not responding enough to criticism. Assuming I’m correct about that, I disagree with it on two grounds:
I frankly think Ben Todd’s post (the one most contributing to “EA establishment is defecting on meta-level epistemic discourse norms”) was totally fine. GWWC has limited time. Everyone has limited time. Dealing with critics is only one possible use of their time and it’s not at all obvious to me it’s the best one on the margin. Ben even notes a possible course of action: communicate better about discussions GWWC has already had.
Even in the maximally uncharitable interpretation of Ben’s comments… it’s still important to run things by People You Are Criticizing Who Are In the Middle of a Project That Needs Coordination, for the reasons I said. If you’re demanding time/attention/effort on the part of people running extensive projects, you should put time/effort into making sure your criticism is actually moving the dialog forward.
Issue 2: Running critical pieces by the people you’re criticizing is necessary, if you want a good epistemic culture. (That said, waiting indefinitely for them to respond is not required. I think “wait a week” is probably a reasonable norm)
Reasons and considerations:
a) they may have already seen and engaged with a similar form of criticism before. If that’s the case, it should be the critic’s responsibility to read up on it, and make sure their criticism is saying something new. Or, that it’s addressing the latest, best thoughts on the part of the person-being-criticized. (See Eliezer’s 4 layers of criticism)
b) you may not understand their reasons well. Especially with something off-the-cuff on facebook. The principle of charity is crucial because our natural tendency is to engage with weaker versions of ideas.
c) you may be wrong about things. Because our kind have trouble cooperating because we tend to criticize a lot, it’s important for criticism of Things We Are Currently Trying to Coordinate On to be made as-accurate-as-possible through private channels before unleashing the storm.
Controversial things are intrinsically “public facing” (see: Scott Alexander’s post on Trump that he specifically asked people not to share and disabled comments on, but which Ann Coulter ended up retweeting). Because it is controversial it may end up being people’s first exposure to Effective Altruism.
Similar to my issue 1, I think Sarah intended this post as tit-for-tat punishment for EA Establishment not responding enough to criticism. Assuming I’m correct about that, I disagree with it on two grounds:
I frankly think Ben Todd’s post (the one most contributing to “EA establishment is defecting on meta-level epistemic discourse norms”) was totally fine. GWWC has limited time. Everyone has limited time. Dealing with critics is only one possible use of their time and it’s not at all obvious to me it’s the best one on the margin. Ben even notes a possible course of action: communicate better about discussions GWWC has already had.
Even in the maximally uncharitable interpretation of Ben’s comments… it’s still important to run things by People You Are Criticizing Who Are In the Middle of a Project That Needs Coordination, for the reasons I said. If you’re demanding time/attention/effort on the part of people running extensive projects, you should put time/effort into making sure your criticism is actually moving the dialog forward.