Yeah, this is fair—but it seems kinda not worth saying sans specifics. You’re vaguing about the kinds of respect you see being denied to this that or the other person, for this that or the other reason, and that’s making this that or the other decisions to be made suboptimally.
I definitely think a weakeness of the statement is the vagueness; it had to be to be so ecumenical.
Nonetheless, I do think it is untrue that its not worth saying sans specifics. As I say above, ‘greater conversation as to the role of peer review’ does not mean ‘peer review and credentialism everywhere’. Rather, it means better understanding the epistemic role it plays, which can be pretty useful, and deliberately deciding whether and how this means we should and could deploy peer review in the field.
Secondly, the vagueness overall does mean it says less of substance than many people I have spoken about this would like. The hope is that this lays a stake in the ground suggesting that actually the epsitemic status of XRisk does mean pluralism OF SOME KIND AND TO SOME EXTENT is required to make this field better. I think the argument we make in that section, and the sketches we give of pluralism ought to be informative enough to at least start a discussion and debate about this. I’ve felt its been a bit unfortunate that people seem to have solely focused on the diversity side (which is really important, and definitely some signatories think is most important) rather than the pluralism of approaches, methodologies, core assumptions etc. I think even in this piece it sets out a decently substantive vision that we ought to use new and more approaches, and construct a community that is better suited to this
Yeah, this is fair—but it seems kinda not worth saying sans specifics. You’re vaguing about the kinds of respect you see being denied to this that or the other person, for this that or the other reason, and that’s making this that or the other decisions to be made suboptimally.
I definitely think a weakeness of the statement is the vagueness; it had to be to be so ecumenical.
Nonetheless, I do think it is untrue that its not worth saying sans specifics. As I say above, ‘greater conversation as to the role of peer review’ does not mean ‘peer review and credentialism everywhere’. Rather, it means better understanding the epistemic role it plays, which can be pretty useful, and deliberately deciding whether and how this means we should and could deploy peer review in the field.
Secondly, the vagueness overall does mean it says less of substance than many people I have spoken about this would like. The hope is that this lays a stake in the ground suggesting that actually the epsitemic status of XRisk does mean pluralism OF SOME KIND AND TO SOME EXTENT is required to make this field better. I think the argument we make in that section, and the sketches we give of pluralism ought to be informative enough to at least start a discussion and debate about this. I’ve felt its been a bit unfortunate that people seem to have solely focused on the diversity side (which is really important, and definitely some signatories think is most important) rather than the pluralism of approaches, methodologies, core assumptions etc. I think even in this piece it sets out a decently substantive vision that we ought to use new and more approaches, and construct a community that is better suited to this
I agree-voted this.