This is a good point, and I thought about it when writing the post—trying to be persuasive does carry the risk of ending up flatteringly mischaracterizing things or worsening epistemics, and we must be careful not to do this. But I don’t think it is doomed to happen with any attempts at being persuasive, such that we shouldn’t even try! I’m sure someone smarter than me could come up with better examples than the ones I presented. (For instance, the example about using visualizations seems pretty harmless—maybe attempts to be persuasive should look more like this than the rest of the examples?)
Maybe we don’t just want to optimize the messaging, but the messengers: Having charismatic & likeable people talk about this stuff might be good (to what extent is this already happening? Are MacAskill & Ord as good as spokespeople as they are as researchers?).
Furthermore, taking the WaitButWhy approach, with easily understandable visualizations, sounds like a good approach, I agree.
This is a good point, and I thought about it when writing the post—trying to be persuasive does carry the risk of ending up flatteringly mischaracterizing things or worsening epistemics, and we must be careful not to do this. But I don’t think it is doomed to happen with any attempts at being persuasive, such that we shouldn’t even try! I’m sure someone smarter than me could come up with better examples than the ones I presented. (For instance, the example about using visualizations seems pretty harmless—maybe attempts to be persuasive should look more like this than the rest of the examples?)
Maybe we don’t just want to optimize the messaging, but the messengers: Having charismatic & likeable people talk about this stuff might be good (to what extent is this already happening? Are MacAskill & Ord as good as spokespeople as they are as researchers?).
Furthermore, taking the WaitButWhy approach, with easily understandable visualizations, sounds like a good approach, I agree.
Oh, I like this idea! And love WaitButWhy.