My suggestion for the CEA comms team would be to consider adopting a ‘no first strikes’ policy: that while it might be fine to rhetorically retaliate if someone attacks EA, as a movement we shouldn’t initiate hostilities with a personal attack against someone who didn’t go after EA first. I think this is a simple and morally intuitive rule that would be beneficial to follow.
While I agree ‘no first strikes’ is good, my prior is that EA communications currently has a ‘no retaliation at all’ policy, which I think is a very bad one (even if unofficial—I buy Shakeel’s point that there may have been a diffusion of responsibility around this)
So for clarification, do you think that CEA ought to adopt this policy just because it is a good thing to do, or because they/other EAs have broken this rule and it needs to be a clearer norm? If the latter, I’d love to see some examples, because I can’t really think of any (at least from ‘official’ EA orgs, and especially the CEA comms team)
On the other hand, I can think of many examples, some from quite senior figures/academics, absolutely attacking EA in an incredibly hostile way, and basically being met with no pushback from official EA organisations or ‘EA leadership’ however defined.
they/other EAs have broken this rule and it needs to be a clearer norm? If the latter, I’d love to see some examples, because I can’t really think of any (at least from ‘official’ EA orgs, and especially the CEA comms team)
I agree with you that EA has not been very good at collectively retaliating, and it would be good if this could be changed. My point was just that not randomly bullying people for being weird seems like low hanging fruit.
I was going to ask the same thing, because I can’t think of any examples either.
(I thought maybe Larks had this in mind—which I do think was bad and I found pretty shocking even before FLI were able to respond—but that’s the OP attacking another EA org, not an EA attacking outside of EA. And I can think of several examples of EA org heads publicly and repeatedly attacking other EA org heads even when the latter never attack back, but again this is all within EA.)
I think this is interesting but don’t think this is as clear cut as you’re making out. There seem to me to be some instances where making the “first strike” is good — e.g. I think it’d be reasonable (though maybe not advisable) to criticise a billionaire for not donating any of their wealth; to criticise an AI company that’s recklessly advancing capabilities; to criticise a virology lab that has unacceptably lax safety standards; or to criticise a Western government that is spending no money on foreign aid. Maybe your “personal attack” clause means this kind of stuff wouldn’t get covered, though?
My suggestion for the CEA comms team would be to consider adopting a ‘no first strikes’ policy: that while it might be fine to rhetorically retaliate if someone attacks EA, as a movement we shouldn’t initiate hostilities with a personal attack against someone who didn’t go after EA first. I think this is a simple and morally intuitive rule that would be beneficial to follow.
While I agree ‘no first strikes’ is good, my prior is that EA communications currently has a ‘no retaliation at all’ policy, which I think is a very bad one (even if unofficial—I buy Shakeel’s point that there may have been a diffusion of responsibility around this)
So for clarification, do you think that CEA ought to adopt this policy just because it is a good thing to do, or because they/other EAs have broken this rule and it needs to be a clearer norm? If the latter, I’d love to see some examples, because I can’t really think of any (at least from ‘official’ EA orgs, and especially the CEA comms team)
On the other hand, I can think of many examples, some from quite senior figures/academics, absolutely attacking EA in an incredibly hostile way, and basically being met with no pushback from official EA organisations or ‘EA leadership’ however defined.
Exactly this—so things like CEA Comms picking on a random EA-adjacent couple to make personal ‘vibes-based’ attacks for no clear reason.
I agree with you that EA has not been very good at collectively retaliating, and it would be good if this could be changed. My point was just that not randomly bullying people for being weird seems like low hanging fruit.
I was going to ask the same thing, because I can’t think of any examples either.
(I thought maybe Larks had this in mind—which I do think was bad and I found pretty shocking even before FLI were able to respond—but that’s the OP attacking another EA org, not an EA attacking outside of EA. And I can think of several examples of EA org heads publicly and repeatedly attacking other EA org heads even when the latter never attack back, but again this is all within EA.)
I think this is interesting but don’t think this is as clear cut as you’re making out. There seem to me to be some instances where making the “first strike” is good — e.g. I think it’d be reasonable (though maybe not advisable) to criticise a billionaire for not donating any of their wealth; to criticise an AI company that’s recklessly advancing capabilities; to criticise a virology lab that has unacceptably lax safety standards; or to criticise a Western government that is spending no money on foreign aid. Maybe your “personal attack” clause means this kind of stuff wouldn’t get covered, though?