I can imagine a world where the things you wrote, like “Do I learn something from talking to that person”, are the sole measure of “posting quality”. I don’t personally think such a world is favorable (e.g. I’d rather someone who often posts smart things stay off the forum if they promote bigoted views). But I also don’t think that’s the world we’re in.
People cannot separate judgement of these things from judgement of a person’s views, even if they think they can. In practice, forum posts are often judged by the views they express (“capitalism is bad” is frowned upon), and even worse, by their style of reasoning (STEM-like arguments and phrasing is much more accepted, quantification and precision are encouraged even when inappropriate). Object-level engagement is appreciated over other forms, disregarding that it is only sometimes right to engage this way.
As I see it, the vision of a rational, logical, strongly truth-seeking forum is an illusion, and this illusion is used to drive out people with more diverse backgrounds or who come from underrepresented schools of thought.
High Standards
I personally have very high standards. There are many posts I want to write, but I really want them to be thorough and convincing, and to engage with relevant materials. You can see the result—I have written none! Is this actually helpful?
I think there can be value in posts that reiterate old content, perhaps even when they leave out important bits or have problematic logic. I have two reasons:
The forum guides the movement not only through building a common knowledge base, but also through representing the growing community’s views. If, for example, 8 years ago someone had written that it’s acceptable to work for a tobacco company in order to donate to high impact charities—how would you know how many current EAs share that view? The view itself is not an empirical question, and the old post’s karma tells you nothing about this. A new post, letting the community reengage with the ideas, might.
As noted in the OP and elsewhere, EAs love to criticise EA. I’m in favor of that—there are lots of problems, and we need to notice and fix them. Alas, many are noticed but then not fixed. If 8 years ago someone had written about how diversity of experience is important, but nowadays the movement is still composed almost entirely of people from Western countries, and most community building resources also go there—it means no meaningful action is being taken to fix the problem, so it needs to be reiterated.
Views vs. “Other Things”
I can imagine a world where the things you wrote, like “Do I learn something from talking to that person”, are the sole measure of “posting quality”. I don’t personally think such a world is favorable (e.g. I’d rather someone who often posts smart things stay off the forum if they promote bigoted views). But I also don’t think that’s the world we’re in.
People cannot separate judgement of these things from judgement of a person’s views, even if they think they can. In practice, forum posts are often judged by the views they express (“capitalism is bad” is frowned upon), and even worse, by their style of reasoning (STEM-like arguments and phrasing is much more accepted, quantification and precision are encouraged even when inappropriate). Object-level engagement is appreciated over other forms, disregarding that it is only sometimes right to engage this way.
As I see it, the vision of a rational, logical, strongly truth-seeking forum is an illusion, and this illusion is used to drive out people with more diverse backgrounds or who come from underrepresented schools of thought.
High Standards
I personally have very high standards. There are many posts I want to write, but I really want them to be thorough and convincing, and to engage with relevant materials. You can see the result—I have written none! Is this actually helpful?
I think there can be value in posts that reiterate old content, perhaps even when they leave out important bits or have problematic logic. I have two reasons:
The forum guides the movement not only through building a common knowledge base, but also through representing the growing community’s views. If, for example, 8 years ago someone had written that it’s acceptable to work for a tobacco company in order to donate to high impact charities—how would you know how many current EAs share that view? The view itself is not an empirical question, and the old post’s karma tells you nothing about this. A new post, letting the community reengage with the ideas, might.
As noted in the OP and elsewhere, EAs love to criticise EA. I’m in favor of that—there are lots of problems, and we need to notice and fix them. Alas, many are noticed but then not fixed. If 8 years ago someone had written about how diversity of experience is important, but nowadays the movement is still composed almost entirely of people from Western countries, and most community building resources also go there—it means no meaningful action is being taken to fix the problem, so it needs to be reiterated.