Downvoted. I appreciate you a lot for writing this letter, and am sorry you/Will were slandered in this way! But I would like to see less of this content on the EA Forum. I think Torres’ has a clear history of writing very bad faith and outrage inducing hit pieces, and think that prominently discussing these or really paying any attention on the EA forum easily sucks in time and emotional energy with little reward. So seeing this post with a lot of comments and at 300+ karma feels sad to me!
My personal take is that the correct policy for the typical EA is to not bother reading their criticisms, given their history of quote mining and misrepresentation, and would have rather never heard about this article.
All that said, I want to reiterate that I’m very glad you wrote this letter, sorry you went through this, and that this has conveyed the useful information to take the bulletin’s editorial standards less seriously!
Yeah I can see that perspective. The aim here was more to point out malfeasance on the part of the Bulletin rather than Torres. I would have expected a lot better from the Bulletin
Fair point! My guess is that the emotional energy tradeoff isn’t worth it, but do agree that this is more useful information than most hit piece discussions give
I disagree. This was only the second time I’ve heard about Torres and it caused me to warn my contacts in Hannover about him who had not heard of him. They have since then come into contact with his writing.
Perhaps posts should have agreement karma like comments do, so we can signal that we agree with John’s post without making it more prominent on the Forum (which as you said is generally a waste of EAs’ attention).
I would be pro this! Though in practice I expect this to not solve the problem—I think the standard reaction is to feel outraged /righteously indignant and upvote this kind of post in a show of support/solidarity
I’d have guessed it’s not outrage or indignation but instead feeling 1) sorry for how frustrating it must be to deal with Torres and dishonest criticism in general, and 2) gratitude for pushing back against it.
That was my reaction. Also I had assumed that John had probably sent this post to the Bulletin and that it would help him get the desired retraction/appology if this post had more karma, so I was tempted to upvote the post to support with that.
(But despite the temptation I originally abstained from voting due to not wanting to promote more Torres-related content, then strong-downvoted after reading Neel’s comment and seeing another front-page post responding to (IMO problematic) journalism (Rob Wiblin’s post responding to Matt Yglesias’ re SBF and risk neutrality) that also wasn’t the sort of content I want to fill up the Forum.)
I didn’t disagreement-karma your comment, but do want to note that I think it would likely help to at least partially solve the problem.
E.g. (Largely due to your original comment, but also in part due to feeling similarly to you independently first) I strong-downvoted the OP despite strongly agreeing with it and feeling very grateful to John for doing such a thorough job dealing with and responding to Torres and bad journalism related to EA.
I don’t always downvote in cases like this—I usuually just abstain from voting—but if there was an agreement button on posts I think I’d be a lot more willing to downvote posts that I think should get less attention (despite my agreement with them, their high writing quality, etc).
I’d like this for the sake of my own posts as well. That is, it has sometimes been the case that I’ve been averse to posting things due to not wanting to take up EA’s time/attention with unimportant things. Giving others an additional way to leave me positive feedback (agreement karma) without having to upvote my post would be nice. As an author it would also help me feel better about my content getting downvoted or having low karma.
Actually that’s a fair point, I somewhat retract my above comment.
I think that in general, if I agree vote a comment I also up vote it. But I do vibe with the idea that I’d be more comfortable downvoting posts like this if I could also agree vote.
Downvoted. I appreciate you a lot for writing this letter, and am sorry you/Will were slandered in this way! But I would like to see less of this content on the EA Forum. I think Torres’ has a clear history of writing very bad faith and outrage inducing hit pieces, and think that prominently discussing these or really paying any attention on the EA forum easily sucks in time and emotional energy with little reward. So seeing this post with a lot of comments and at 300+ karma feels sad to me!
My personal take is that the correct policy for the typical EA is to not bother reading their criticisms, given their history of quote mining and misrepresentation, and would have rather never heard about this article.
All that said, I want to reiterate that I’m very glad you wrote this letter, sorry you went through this, and that this has conveyed the useful information to take the bulletin’s editorial standards less seriously!
Yeah I can see that perspective. The aim here was more to point out malfeasance on the part of the Bulletin rather than Torres. I would have expected a lot better from the Bulletin
Fair point! My guess is that the emotional energy tradeoff isn’t worth it, but do agree that this is more useful information than most hit piece discussions give
I disagree. This was only the second time I’ve heard about Torres and it caused me to warn my contacts in Hannover about him who had not heard of him. They have since then come into contact with his writing.
Perhaps posts should have agreement karma like comments do, so we can signal that we agree with John’s post without making it more prominent on the Forum (which as you said is generally a waste of EAs’ attention).
I would be pro this! Though in practice I expect this to not solve the problem—I think the standard reaction is to feel outraged /righteously indignant and upvote this kind of post in a show of support/solidarity
I’d have guessed it’s not outrage or indignation but instead feeling 1) sorry for how frustrating it must be to deal with Torres and dishonest criticism in general, and 2) gratitude for pushing back against it.
That was my reaction. Also I had assumed that John had probably sent this post to the Bulletin and that it would help him get the desired retraction/appology if this post had more karma, so I was tempted to upvote the post to support with that.
(But despite the temptation I originally abstained from voting due to not wanting to promote more Torres-related content, then strong-downvoted after reading Neel’s comment and seeing another front-page post responding to (IMO problematic) journalism (Rob Wiblin’s post responding to Matt Yglesias’ re SBF and risk neutrality) that also wasn’t the sort of content I want to fill up the Forum.)
I didn’t disagreement-karma your comment, but do want to note that I think it would likely help to at least partially solve the problem.
E.g. (Largely due to your original comment, but also in part due to feeling similarly to you independently first) I strong-downvoted the OP despite strongly agreeing with it and feeling very grateful to John for doing such a thorough job dealing with and responding to Torres and bad journalism related to EA.
I don’t always downvote in cases like this—I usuually just abstain from voting—but if there was an agreement button on posts I think I’d be a lot more willing to downvote posts that I think should get less attention (despite my agreement with them, their high writing quality, etc).
I’d like this for the sake of my own posts as well. That is, it has sometimes been the case that I’ve been averse to posting things due to not wanting to take up EA’s time/attention with unimportant things. Giving others an additional way to leave me positive feedback (agreement karma) without having to upvote my post would be nice. As an author it would also help me feel better about my content getting downvoted or having low karma.
Actually that’s a fair point, I somewhat retract my above comment.
I think that in general, if I agree vote a comment I also up vote it. But I do vibe with the idea that I’d be more comfortable downvoting posts like this if I could also agree vote.