I don’t believe people should vote on posts based on whether they believe the posts do net benefit or net harm. That’s what a naive utilitarian approach would suggest, but I don’t think we should take a naive utilitarian approach. Instead we should vote based on how meaningfully the post contributes, even if we believe the conclusion is wrong.
I disagree with your claim that we should censor “bad” opinions and I believe this sort of behavior damages healthy discourse in the long run. I’m not downvoting your comment because that would go against my beliefs about how people ought to vote on things. Actually I’m upvoting it because you’re saying something relatively novel and it made me think about things in a way I hadn’t before.
I do think that we need to push for more intellectual diversity in the EA movement, but there are much better ways to do this than entertain this sort of discussion.
I’d be interested in knowing what ways you think would be better.
Thank you, to be frankly honest I’m not too sure how sold I am on my argument either—naive utilitarianism is definitely a fun way to explore new models, but I definitely agree that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously!
For intellectual diversity, I don’t have a concrete plan as of yet, but in general one of my main hang-up is my perception that EAs don’t give enough credence to the thoughts of practicioners who have been trying to improve the effectiveness of NGO and Government work for decades. I work in a large NGO, and my job focuses on improving the uptake of impact research evidence, and I originally approached my job from a very naive perspective, believing that EA-style thinking (even though I didn’t know about EA at the time) would easily improve the effectiveness of the organization. A lot of people were pushing back against the initiative, which I originally thought was just a matter of them ‘not getting it’, or ‘supporting the status quo’ - until I started talking to them, and realized that I was being the ridiculous one. That being said, I still had some things to add—which is why overall I think that similar engagements between EAs and non-EAs who are working on the effectiveness of a given topic should talk more (and the EAs should listen as much as they talk!). Learning more about how programs and aid and NGOs and such actually ‘work’ in reality and talking to experts on these topics may nuance a lot of people’s positions—it did for me at least.
I think engaging more with ‘traditional social movements’, like feminism, Black Lives Matters, labor unions, etc. could lead to similar benefits as well, especially as EAs consider how to grow and increase the power of the EA ‘movement’ - although, I understand that this is a touchier topic, so I don’t really push for it often.
I don’t believe people should vote on posts based on whether they believe the posts do net benefit or net harm. That’s what a naive utilitarian approach would suggest, but I don’t think we should take a naive utilitarian approach. Instead we should vote based on how meaningfully the post contributes, even if we believe the conclusion is wrong.
I disagree with your claim that we should censor “bad” opinions and I believe this sort of behavior damages healthy discourse in the long run. I’m not downvoting your comment because that would go against my beliefs about how people ought to vote on things. Actually I’m upvoting it because you’re saying something relatively novel and it made me think about things in a way I hadn’t before.
I’d be interested in knowing what ways you think would be better.
Thank you, to be frankly honest I’m not too sure how sold I am on my argument either—naive utilitarianism is definitely a fun way to explore new models, but I definitely agree that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously! For intellectual diversity, I don’t have a concrete plan as of yet, but in general one of my main hang-up is my perception that EAs don’t give enough credence to the thoughts of practicioners who have been trying to improve the effectiveness of NGO and Government work for decades. I work in a large NGO, and my job focuses on improving the uptake of impact research evidence, and I originally approached my job from a very naive perspective, believing that EA-style thinking (even though I didn’t know about EA at the time) would easily improve the effectiveness of the organization. A lot of people were pushing back against the initiative, which I originally thought was just a matter of them ‘not getting it’, or ‘supporting the status quo’ - until I started talking to them, and realized that I was being the ridiculous one. That being said, I still had some things to add—which is why overall I think that similar engagements between EAs and non-EAs who are working on the effectiveness of a given topic should talk more (and the EAs should listen as much as they talk!). Learning more about how programs and aid and NGOs and such actually ‘work’ in reality and talking to experts on these topics may nuance a lot of people’s positions—it did for me at least. I think engaging more with ‘traditional social movements’, like feminism, Black Lives Matters, labor unions, etc. could lead to similar benefits as well, especially as EAs consider how to grow and increase the power of the EA ‘movement’ - although, I understand that this is a touchier topic, so I don’t really push for it often.