In the interest of being helpful and welcoming to this new user, could any downvoters give feedback or explain their votes?
Edit: Someone is trying to join, or at least interface with, the EA community by asking a question that we can answer. The question is well-formed, represents an hour or more of thought, and addresses a popular idea among the altruistically-minded. The only concrete thing I don’t like about this post is that the OP is slightly rude in saying “Please, if you disagree with me, carry your precious opinion elsewhere.”
I think that people are downvoting this because the OP is not impartial, and has a preferred way to improve the world. I think that in general, automatically downvoting posts by such people is wrong, and if we have good epistemic hygiene, the benefits (being more welcoming and intellectually diverse, helping future people understand EA by addressing popular misconceptions and mistakes) by engaging with the question will far outweigh risks of dilution. This is because dilution only becomes a big problem when people start to misunderstand or misappropriate EA ideas, and we address such misunderstandings precisely through high-fidelity communication. Engaging here is one of the highest-fidelity forms of text-based communication possible.
I downvoted this. “Please, if you disagree with me, carry your precious opinion elsewhere” reads to me as more than slightly rude and effectively an intentional insult to people who disagree with the OP and would otherwise have shared their views. I think it’s totally reasonable to worry in advance about a thread veering away from the topic you want to discuss and to preempt that with a request to directly answer your question [Edited slightly] and I wouldn’t have downvoted without the reference to other people’s “precious views.”
Fwiw, the forum explicitly discourages unnecessary rudeness (and encourages kindness). I think tone is part of that and the voting system is a reasonable mechanism for setting that norm. But there’s room for disagreement.
If the original poster came back and edited in response to feedback or said that the tone wasn’t intentional, I’d happily remove my downvote.
I didn’t downvote, but I imagine people are reacting to a couple of phrases in the OP:
Please, if you disagree with me, carry your precious opinion elsewhere. I am only interested in opinions on how to most effectively create a more equal society.
I think that being open to changing your mind is an important norm. I think you could read this sentence as a very reasonable request to keep this discussion on topic, but I worry that it is a more general stance. (I also find the phrasing a bit rude.)
Some of the other phrases (e.g. “conviction” “deeply sick” “all other problems are just derivatives”) make me worry about whether this person will change their mind, make me worry that they’re overconfident, and make me worry that they’ll use heated discourse in arguments rather than collaboratively truth seeking. All of these (if true) would make me a bit less excited about welcoming them to the community.
I also think that I could be reading too much into such phrases—I hope this person will go on to engage open-mindedly in discussion.
I really liked your answer—I think it’s absolutely worth sharing resources, gently challenging, and reinforcing norms around open-minded cause prio. I personally think that that’s a better solution than downvoting, if people have the time to do so.
I think that being open to changing your mind is an important norm. I think you could read this sentence as a very reasonable request to keep this discussion on topic, but I worry that it is a more general stance.
OP seems very open to change their mind, as evidenced by having donated to help animals and humans, to direct interventions and systemic change, as well as a recent rethink of their approach. Within their cause, they seem open to change their mind about the most effective interventions (like many other posts on the EA forum that are not very cause neutral).
Some of the other phrases (e.g. “conviction” “deeply sick” “all other problems are just derivatives”) make me worry about whether this person will change their mind, make me worry that they’re overconfident, and make me worry that they’ll use heated discourse in arguments rather than collaboratively truth seeking. All of these also make me a bit less excited about welcoming them to the community.
Emotionally laden language is sometimes apt. If we stereotype against this sort of language in EA, then people who are justifiably upset about issues such as inequality, especially those personally affected (in contrast to many in the EA community), might feel unwelcome.
Thanks! Those are both good points. I think you’re right that they’re open to changing their minds about some important aspects of their worldview (though I do think that “Please, if you disagree with me, carry your precious opinion elsewhere. ” is some evidence that there are aspects that they’re not very open to changing their mind about).
I also think that I reacted too strongly to the emotionally laden language—I agree this can be justified and appropriate, though I think it can also make collaborative truth-seeking harder. This makes me think that it’s good to acknowledge, feel, and empathize with anger/sadness, whilst still being careful about the potential impact it might have when we’re trying to work together to figure out what to do to help others. I do still feel worried about some sort of oversimplification/overconfidence wrt “all other problems are just derivatives”.
To be clear, I always thought it was good to engage in discussion here rather than downvote, but I’m now a bit more optimistic about the dialogue going well.
In the interest of being helpful and welcoming to this new user, could any downvoters give feedback or explain their votes?
Edit: Someone is trying to join, or at least interface with, the EA community by asking a question that we can answer. The question is well-formed, represents an hour or more of thought, and addresses a popular idea among the altruistically-minded. The only concrete thing I don’t like about this post is that the OP is slightly rude in saying “Please, if you disagree with me, carry your precious opinion elsewhere.”
I think that people are downvoting this because the OP is not impartial, and has a preferred way to improve the world. I think that in general, automatically downvoting posts by such people is wrong, and if we have good epistemic hygiene, the benefits (being more welcoming and intellectually diverse, helping future people understand EA by addressing popular misconceptions and mistakes) by engaging with the question will far outweigh risks of dilution. This is because dilution only becomes a big problem when people start to misunderstand or misappropriate EA ideas, and we address such misunderstandings precisely through high-fidelity communication. Engaging here is one of the highest-fidelity forms of text-based communication possible.
I downvoted this. “Please, if you disagree with me, carry your precious opinion elsewhere” reads to me as more than slightly rude and effectively an intentional insult to people who disagree with the OP and would otherwise have shared their views. I think it’s totally reasonable to worry in advance about a thread veering away from the topic you want to discuss and to preempt that with a request to directly answer your question [Edited slightly] and I wouldn’t have downvoted without the reference to other people’s “precious views.”
I downvoted this for comment for not addressing the central claim but only the tone.
Getting the tone right can sometimes be challenging especially for non-native speakers.
Fair enough.
Fwiw, the forum explicitly discourages unnecessary rudeness (and encourages kindness). I think tone is part of that and the voting system is a reasonable mechanism for setting that norm. But there’s room for disagreement.
If the original poster came back and edited in response to feedback or said that the tone wasn’t intentional, I’d happily remove my downvote.
I didn’t downvote, but I imagine people are reacting to a couple of phrases in the OP:
I think that being open to changing your mind is an important norm. I think you could read this sentence as a very reasonable request to keep this discussion on topic, but I worry that it is a more general stance. (I also find the phrasing a bit rude.)
Some of the other phrases (e.g. “conviction” “deeply sick” “all other problems are just derivatives”) make me worry about whether this person will change their mind, make me worry that they’re overconfident, and make me worry that they’ll use heated discourse in arguments rather than collaboratively truth seeking. All of these (if true) would make me a bit less excited about welcoming them to the community.
I also think that I could be reading too much into such phrases—I hope this person will go on to engage open-mindedly in discussion.
I really liked your answer—I think it’s absolutely worth sharing resources, gently challenging, and reinforcing norms around open-minded cause prio. I personally think that that’s a better solution than downvoting, if people have the time to do so.
OP seems very open to change their mind, as evidenced by having donated to help animals and humans, to direct interventions and systemic change, as well as a recent rethink of their approach. Within their cause, they seem open to change their mind about the most effective interventions (like many other posts on the EA forum that are not very cause neutral).
Emotionally laden language is sometimes apt. If we stereotype against this sort of language in EA, then people who are justifiably upset about issues such as inequality, especially those personally affected (in contrast to many in the EA community), might feel unwelcome.
Thanks! Those are both good points. I think you’re right that they’re open to changing their minds about some important aspects of their worldview (though I do think that “Please, if you disagree with me, carry your precious opinion elsewhere. ” is some evidence that there are aspects that they’re not very open to changing their mind about).
I also think that I reacted too strongly to the emotionally laden language—I agree this can be justified and appropriate, though I think it can also make collaborative truth-seeking harder. This makes me think that it’s good to acknowledge, feel, and empathize with anger/sadness, whilst still being careful about the potential impact it might have when we’re trying to work together to figure out what to do to help others. I do still feel worried about some sort of oversimplification/overconfidence wrt “all other problems are just derivatives”.
To be clear, I always thought it was good to engage in discussion here rather than downvote, but I’m now a bit more optimistic about the dialogue going well.