I’m not sure any of these except maybe the second actually answer the complaints Richard is making.
The first linked post here seems to defend, or at least be sympathetic to, the position that encouraging veganism specifically among Black people in US cities is somehow more an attempt at “systemic change” with regard to animal exploitation than working towards lab-grown meat (the whole point of which is that it might end up replacing farming altogether). The third post is mostly not about the institutional critique at all, and the main thing it does say about it is just that longtermists can’t respond to it by saying they only back interventions that pass rigorous GiveWell-style cost benefit analysis. Which is true enough, but does zero to motivate the idea that there are good interventions aimed at institutional change available. Thorstad does also say “well, haven’t anti-oppression mass movements done a whole lot of good in the past; isn’t a bit suspicious to think they’ve suddenly stopped doing so”. Which is a good point in itself, but fairly abstract and doesn’t actually do much to help anyone identify what reforms they should be funding.
The fourth post is extraordinarily abstract: the point seems to be that a) we should pay more attention to injustice, and b) people often use abstract language about what is rational to justify injustice against oppressed groups. Again, this is not very actionable, and Thorstad’s post does not really mention Crary’s arguments for either of these claims.
I think this goes some way to vindicating Richard’s complaint that not enough specific details are given in these sort of critiques, rather than undermining it actually (though only a little, these are short reviews, and may not do the stuff being reviewed justice.)
The first linked post here seems to defend, or at least be sympathetic to, the position that encouraging veganism specifically among Black people in US cities is somehow more an attempt at “systemic change” with regard to animal exploitation than working towards lab-grown meat (the whole point of which is that it might end up replacing farming altogether).
See also Crary et al.’s lament that EA funders prioritize transformative alt-meat research and corporate campaigns over sanctuaries for individual rescued animals. They are clearly not principled advocates for systemic change over piecemeal interventions. Rather, I take these examples to show that their criticisms are entirely opportunistic. (As I previously argued on my blog, the best available evidence—especially taking into account their self-reported motivation for writing the anti-EA book—suggests that these authors want funding for their friends and political allies, and don’t want it to have to pass any kind of evaluation for cost-effectiveness relative to competing uses of the available funds. It’s all quite transparent, and I don’t understand why people insist on pretending that these hacks have intellectual merit.)
I find it quite irritating that no matter how much in depth object level criticism people like Thorstadt or I make, if we dare to mention meta-level problems at all we often get treated like rabid social justice vigilantes. This is just mud-slinging: both meta level and object level issues are important for the epistemological health of the movement.
How does writing a substantive post on x-risk give Thorstad a free pass to cast aspersions when he turns to discussing politics or economics?
I’m criticizing specific content here. I don’t know who you are or what your grievances are, and I’d ask you not to project them onto my specific criticisms of Thorstad and Crary et al.
Thorstad acknowledged that many of us have engaged in depth with the critique he references, but instead of treating our responses as worth considering, he suggests it is “worth considering if the social and financial position of effective altruists might have something to do with” the conclusions we reach.
It is hardly “mud-slinging” for me to find this slimy dismissal objectionable. Nor is it mud-slinging to point out ways in which Crary et al (cited approvingly by Thorstad) are clearly being unprincipled in their appeals to “systemic change”. This is specific, textually-grounded criticism of specific actors, none of whom are you.
I think Thorstad has written very good stuff-for example on the way in which arguments for small reductions in extinction risk. More politically, his reporting on Scott Alexander and some other figures connected to the community’s racism is a useful public service and he has every right to be pissed off {EDIT: sentence originally ended here: I meant to say he has every right to be pissed of at people ignore or disparaging the racism stuff]. I don’t even necessarily entirely disagree with the meta-level critique being offered here.
But it was still striking to me that someone responded to the complaint that people making the institutional critique tend not to actually have much in the way of actionable information, and to take a “let me explain why these people came to their obviously wrong views” tone, by posting a bunch of stuff that was mostly like that.
If my tone is sharp it’s also because, like Richard I find the easy, unthinking combination of “the problem with these people is that they don’t care about changing the system” with “why are they doing meat alternatives and not vegan outreach aimed at a particular ethnic group that makes up <20% of the population or animal shelters” to be genuinely enragingly hypocritical and unserious. That’s actually somewhat separate from whether EAs are insufficiently sympathetic to anticapitalist or “social justice”-coded.
Incidentally, while I agree with Jason that it’s “Moskowitz and Tuna ought to be able to personally decide where nearly all the money in the movement is spent” that is the weird claim that needs defending, my guess is that at least one practical effect of this has been to pull the movement left, not right, on several issues. Open Phil spent money on anti- mass incarceration stuff, and vaguely left-coded macroeconomic policy stuff at a time when the community was not particularly interested in either of those things. Indeed I remember Thorstad singling out critiques of the criminal justice stuff as examples of the community holding left-coded stuff to a higher standard of proof. More recently you must have seen the rationalist complaints on the forum about how Open Phil won’t fund anything “right-coded”. None of that’s to say there are no problems in principle with unaccountable billionares of course. After all, our other major billionaire donor was SBF! (Though his politics wasn’t really the issue.)
Those are meta-level epistemological/methodological critiques for the most part, but meta-level epistemological/methodological critiques can still be substantive critiques and not reducible to mere psychologization of adversaries.
Here are Thorstad’s earlier posts on the institutional critique:
https://reflectivealtruism.com/2023/06/09/the-good-it-promises-the-harm-it-does-part-4-lori-gruen/
https://reflectivealtruism.com/2023/07/15/the-good-it-promises-part-5-de-coriolis-et-al/
https://reflectivealtruism.com/2023/07/29/epistemics-part-5-the-value-of-cost-effectiveness-analysis/
https://reflectivealtruism.com/2023/09/08/the-good-it-promises-part-7-crary-continued/
I’m not sure any of these except maybe the second actually answer the complaints Richard is making.
The first linked post here seems to defend, or at least be sympathetic to, the position that encouraging veganism specifically among Black people in US cities is somehow more an attempt at “systemic change” with regard to animal exploitation than working towards lab-grown meat (the whole point of which is that it might end up replacing farming altogether).
The third post is mostly not about the institutional critique at all, and the main thing it does say about it is just that longtermists can’t respond to it by saying they only back interventions that pass rigorous GiveWell-style cost benefit analysis. Which is true enough, but does zero to motivate the idea that there are good interventions aimed at institutional change available. Thorstad does also say “well, haven’t anti-oppression mass movements done a whole lot of good in the past; isn’t a bit suspicious to think they’ve suddenly stopped doing so”. Which is a good point in itself, but fairly abstract and doesn’t actually do much to help anyone identify what reforms they should be funding.
The fourth post is extraordinarily abstract: the point seems to be that a) we should pay more attention to injustice, and b) people often use abstract language about what is rational to justify injustice against oppressed groups. Again, this is not very actionable, and Thorstad’s post does not really mention Crary’s arguments for either of these claims.
I think this goes some way to vindicating Richard’s complaint that not enough specific details are given in these sort of critiques, rather than undermining it actually (though only a little, these are short reviews, and may not do the stuff being reviewed justice.)
I think this point is extremely revealing:
See also Crary et al.’s lament that EA funders prioritize transformative alt-meat research and corporate campaigns over sanctuaries for individual rescued animals. They are clearly not principled advocates for systemic change over piecemeal interventions. Rather, I take these examples to show that their criticisms are entirely opportunistic. (As I previously argued on my blog, the best available evidence—especially taking into account their self-reported motivation for writing the anti-EA book—suggests that these authors want funding for their friends and political allies, and don’t want it to have to pass any kind of evaluation for cost-effectiveness relative to competing uses of the available funds. It’s all quite transparent, and I don’t understand why people insist on pretending that these hacks have intellectual merit.)
To be clear, Thorstadt has written around a hundred different articles critiquing EA positions in depth, including significant amounts of object level criticism.
I find it quite irritating that no matter how much in depth object level criticism people like Thorstadt or I make, if we dare to mention meta-level problems at all we often get treated like rabid social justice vigilantes. This is just mud-slinging: both meta level and object level issues are important for the epistemological health of the movement.
How does writing a substantive post on x-risk give Thorstad a free pass to cast aspersions when he turns to discussing politics or economics?
I’m criticizing specific content here. I don’t know who you are or what your grievances are, and I’d ask you not to project them onto my specific criticisms of Thorstad and Crary et al.
Thorstad acknowledged that many of us have engaged in depth with the critique he references, but instead of treating our responses as worth considering, he suggests it is “worth considering if the social and financial position of effective altruists might have something to do with” the conclusions we reach.
It is hardly “mud-slinging” for me to find this slimy dismissal objectionable. Nor is it mud-slinging to point out ways in which Crary et al (cited approvingly by Thorstad) are clearly being unprincipled in their appeals to “systemic change”. This is specific, textually-grounded criticism of specific actors, none of whom are you.
I think Thorstad has written very good stuff-for example on the way in which arguments for small reductions in extinction risk. More politically, his reporting on Scott Alexander and some other figures connected to the community’s racism is a useful public service and he has every right to be pissed off {EDIT: sentence originally ended here: I meant to say he has every right to be pissed of at people ignore or disparaging the racism stuff]. I don’t even necessarily entirely disagree with the meta-level critique being offered here.
But it was still striking to me that someone responded to the complaint that people making the institutional critique tend not to actually have much in the way of actionable information, and to take a “let me explain why these people came to their obviously wrong views” tone, by posting a bunch of stuff that was mostly like that.
If my tone is sharp it’s also because, like Richard I find the easy, unthinking combination of “the problem with these people is that they don’t care about changing the system” with “why are they doing meat alternatives and not vegan outreach aimed at a particular ethnic group that makes up <20% of the population or animal shelters” to be genuinely enragingly hypocritical and unserious. That’s actually somewhat separate from whether EAs are insufficiently sympathetic to anticapitalist or “social justice”-coded.
Incidentally, while I agree with Jason that it’s “Moskowitz and Tuna ought to be able to personally decide where nearly all the money in the movement is spent” that is the weird claim that needs defending, my guess is that at least one practical effect of this has been to pull the movement left, not right, on several issues. Open Phil spent money on anti- mass incarceration stuff, and vaguely left-coded macroeconomic policy stuff at a time when the community was not particularly interested in either of those things. Indeed I remember Thorstad singling out critiques of the criminal justice stuff as examples of the community holding left-coded stuff to a higher standard of proof. More recently you must have seen the rationalist complaints on the forum about how Open Phil won’t fund anything “right-coded”. None of that’s to say there are no problems in principle with unaccountable billionares of course. After all, our other major billionaire donor was SBF! (Though his politics wasn’t really the issue.)
Those are meta-level epistemological/methodological critiques for the most part, but meta-level epistemological/methodological critiques can still be substantive critiques and not reducible to mere psychologization of adversaries.
Yeah, I suppose that is fair.