Meta-comment: I noticed while reading this post and some of the comments that I had a strong urge to upvote any comment that was critical of EA and had some substantive content. Introspecting, I think this was partly due to trying to signal-boost critical comments because I don’t think we get enough of those, partly because I agreed with some of those critiques, … but I think mostly because it feels like part of the EA/rationalist tribal identity that self-critiquing should be virtuous. I also found myself being proud of the community that a critical post like this gets upvoted so much—look how epistemically virtuous we are, we even upvote criticisms!
On the one hand that’s perhaps a bit worrying—are we critiquing and/or upvoting critiques because of the content or because of tribal identity? On the other hand, I suppose if I’m going to have some tribal identity then being part of a tribe where it’s virtuous to give substantive critiques of the tribe is not a bad starting place.
But back on the first hand, I wonder if this would be so upvoted if it came from someone outside of EA, didn’t include things about how the author really agrees with EA overall, and perhaps was written in a more polemical style. Are we only virtuously upvoting critiques from fellow tribe members, but if it came as an attack from outside then our tribal defense instincts would kick in and we would fight against the perceived threat?
[EDIT: To be clear, I am not saying anything about this particular post. I happened to agree with a lot of the content in the OP, and I have voiced these and related concerns several times myself.]
Meta-comment: I noticed while reading this post and some of the comments that I had a strong urge to upvote any comment that was critical of EA and had some substantive content. Introspecting, I think this was partly due to trying to signal-boost critical comments because I don’t think we get enough of those, partly because I agreed with some of those critiques, … but I think mostly because it feels like part of the EA/rationalist tribal identity that self-critiquing should be virtuous. I also found myself being proud of the community that a critical post like this gets upvoted so much—look how epistemically virtuous we are, we even upvote criticisms!
On the one hand that’s perhaps a bit worrying—are we critiquing and/or upvoting critiques because of the content or because of tribal identity? On the other hand, I suppose if I’m going to have some tribal identity then being part of a tribe where it’s virtuous to give substantive critiques of the tribe is not a bad starting place.
But back on the first hand, I wonder if this would be so upvoted if it came from someone outside of EA, didn’t include things about how the author really agrees with EA overall, and perhaps was written in a more polemical style. Are we only virtuously upvoting critiques from fellow tribe members, but if it came as an attack from outside then our tribal defense instincts would kick in and we would fight against the perceived threat?
[EDIT: To be clear, I am not saying anything about this particular post. I happened to agree with a lot of the content in the OP, and I have voiced these and related concerns several times myself.]
I’ve noted similar patterns, and think that criticisms of EA sometimes get more attention than they deserve. I wrote on related themes here.
(I think this particular post—the OP—makes a good point, however.)