A few data points and reactions from my somewhat different experiences with EA:
I’ve known many EAs. Many have been vegan and many have not (I’m not). I’ve never seen anyone “treat [someone] as non-serious (or even evil)” based on their diet.
A significant minority achieves high status across EA contexts while loudly disagreeing with utilitarianism.
You claim that EA takes as given “Not living up to this list is morally bad. Also sort of like murder.” Of course failing to save lives is sort of like murder, for sufficiently weak “sort of.” But at the level of telling people what to do with their lives, I’ve always seen community leaders endorse things like personal wellbeing and non-total altruism (and not always just for instrumental, altruistic reasons). The rank-and-file and high-status alike talk (online and offline) about having fun. The vibe I get from the community is that EA is more of an exciting opportunity than a burdensome obligation. (Yes, that’s probably an instrumentally valuable vibe for the community to have—but that means that ‘having fun is murder’ is not endorsed by the community, not the other way around.)
[Retracted; I generally support noting disagreements even if you’re not explaining them; see Zvi’s reply] It feels intellectually lazy to “strongly disagree” with principles like “The best way to do good yourself is to act selflessly to do good” and then not explain why. To illustrate, here’s my confused reading of your disagreement. Maybe you narrowly disagree that selflessness is the optimal psychological strategy for all humans. But of course EA doesn’t believe that either. Maybe you think it does. Or maybe you have a deeper criticism about “The best way to do good yourself”… but I can’t guess what that is.
Relatedly, you claim that you are somehow not allowed to say real critiques. “There are also things one is not socially allowed to question or consider, not in EA in particular but fully broadly. Some key considerations are things that cannot be said on the internet, and some general assumptions that cannot be questioned are importantly wrong but cannot be questioned.” “Signals are strong [real criticism] is unwelcome and would not be rewarded.” I just don’t buy it. My experiences strongly suggest that the community goes out of its way to be open to good-faith criticism, in more than a pat-ourselves-on-the-back-for-being-open-to-criticism manner. I guess insofar as you have had different experiences that you decline to discuss explicitly, fine, you’ll arrive at different beliefs. But your observations aren’t really useful to the rest of us if you don’t say them, including the meta-observation that you’re supposedly not allowed to say certain things.
I think you gesture toward useful criticism. It would be useful for me if you actually made that criticism. You might change my mind about something! This post doesn’t seem written to make it easy for even epistemically virtuous EAs to be able to change their minds, even if you’ve correctly identified some good criticism, though, since you don’t share it.
I’ve known many EAs. Many have been vegan and many have not (I’m not). I’ve never seen anyone “treat [someone] as non-serious (or even evil)” based on their diet.
I’ve had pushback about not being vegan/vegetarian, but I perceive it to be a thing a small fraction of EAs push other people on rather than a general norm.
I’ve upvoted because I think it is valuable to share this kind of experience. I think sometimes this sort of thing can be subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle and either way, it still can be very unpleasant.
I feel like I very well could have made people feel judged without meaning to (I hope not though).
I am glad to hear your first two points. They do not match my experience. The third is less divergent, but also good news on the margin.
I think it is good practice to note strong disagreements where they exist, but also if I explained every strong disagreement I had I’d never finish the post, and also that would become the topic of discussion (as it partly is now) - I thought this was the right balance. I find your guess as to the reason interesting, as it is the ‘most paradigm affirming’ of the plausible strong disagreements, where it would be the right approach except there are psychological problems (which the paradigm acknowledges in general). I do think that’s a problem, but centrally that’s not it. The problem is closer to what Byrnes is talking about, that competition and preferentially wanting things locally are features rather than bugs, which includes but is broader than markets because the claim of full selflessness goes beyond not wanting to use markets.
I notice I have in the past made an attempt to write the post for that, but that my understandings and writing skills have expanded and my quick skim of it made me think it’s not as good as it could have been. But it’s what is available.
As for the part where I say I’m not allowed to say things, I am saying primarily not that the EA community in particular would be unwelcoming but that there are things that you can get cancelled or otherwise severely punished for saying on the internet, and I’m sure as hell not going to say them on the internet.
It feels intellectually lazy to “strongly disagree” with principles like “The best way to do good yourself is to act selflessly to do good” and then not explain why.
I could be wrong, but I was figuring that here Zvi was coming from a pro-market perspective, i.e. the perspective in which Jeff Bezos has made the world a better place by founding Amazon and thus we can now get consumer goods more cheaply and conveniently etc. (But Jeff Bezos did so, presumably, out of a selfish desire to make money.)
I also suggest replacing “feels intellectually lazy” with something like “I know you’re busy but I sure hope you’ll find the time to spell out your thoughts on this topic in the future”. (In which case, I second that!)
After a PM conversation with Steve, and pending reviewing Zvi’s post more carefully, I’ll note:
I agree that Zvi probably meant something pro-market. (I mostly disagree that EA should be much more pro-market than it already is, but that’s not the main point here.)
Insofar as Zvi is attempting to make the reader believe without justification that EA is insufficiently pro-market, that’s intellectually lazy, but he’s probably just mentioning disagreements to set up the rest of his post rather than to convince, in which case it’s not intellectually lazy. So I retract “intellectually lazy.” (But it is frustrating to a reader who wants to know what Zvi really thinks and why, especially since this isn’t the first time Zvi has criticized EA obliquely.)
This post doesn’t seem written to make it easy for even epistemically virtuous EAs to be able to change their minds, even if you’ve correctly identified some good criticism, though, since you don’t share it.
This post seems to be written for people to change their mind about how criticism should be evaluated.
The rank-and-file and high-status alike talk (online and offline) about having fun.
Currently, the background image for the Berlin EA group is an image of the Effective Altruism Unconference 2021.
I was surprised that their 2022 unconference was not listed as an event on their page. When I asked the explanation I got was that past unconferences gave German EA’s a reputation of being too hedonistic and that’s why it makes sense to not list the event publically on the EA forum.
A community where there’s a sense that a subgroup feels like being perceived as hedonistic is a problem for them seems to me not one that really cares about fun.
Thanks for this post.
A few data points and reactions from my somewhat different experiences with EA:
I’ve known many EAs. Many have been vegan and many have not (I’m not). I’ve never seen anyone “treat [someone] as non-serious (or even evil)” based on their diet.
A significant minority achieves high status across EA contexts while loudly disagreeing with utilitarianism.
You claim that EA takes as given “Not living up to this list is morally bad. Also sort of like murder.” Of course failing to save lives is sort of like murder, for sufficiently weak “sort of.” But at the level of telling people what to do with their lives, I’ve always seen community leaders endorse things like personal wellbeing and non-total altruism (and not always just for instrumental, altruistic reasons). The rank-and-file and high-status alike talk (online and offline) about having fun. The vibe I get from the community is that EA is more of an exciting opportunity than a burdensome obligation. (Yes, that’s probably an instrumentally valuable vibe for the community to have—but that means that ‘having fun is murder’ is not endorsed by the community, not the other way around.)
[Retracted; I generally support noting disagreements even if you’re not explaining them; see Zvi’s reply]
It feels intellectually lazy to “strongly disagree” with principles like “The best way to do good yourself is to act selflessly to do good” and then not explain why. To illustrate, here’s my confused reading of your disagreement. Maybe you narrowly disagree that selflessness is the optimal psychological strategy for all humans. But of course EA doesn’t believe that either. Maybe you think it does. Or maybe you have a deeper criticism about “The best way to do good yourself”… but I can’t guess what that is.Relatedly, you claim that you are somehow not allowed to say real critiques. “There are also things one is not socially allowed to question or consider, not in EA in particular but fully broadly. Some key considerations are things that cannot be said on the internet, and some general assumptions that cannot be questioned are importantly wrong but cannot be questioned.” “Signals are strong [real criticism] is unwelcome and would not be rewarded.” I just don’t buy it. My experiences strongly suggest that the community goes out of its way to be open to good-faith criticism, in more than a pat-ourselves-on-the-back-for-being-open-to-criticism manner. I guess insofar as you have had different experiences that you decline to discuss explicitly, fine, you’ll arrive at different beliefs. But your observations aren’t really useful to the rest of us if you don’t say them, including the meta-observation that you’re supposedly not allowed to say certain things.
I think you gesture toward useful criticism. It would be useful for me if you actually made that criticism. You might change my mind about something! This post doesn’t seem written to make it easy for even epistemically virtuous EAs to be able to change their minds, even if you’ve correctly identified some good criticism, though, since you don’t share it.
I’ve had this happen fwiw.
I’ve had pushback about not being vegan/vegetarian, but I perceive it to be a thing a small fraction of EAs push other people on rather than a general norm.
Huh. I’m sorry. I hope that experience isn’t representative of EA.
I’ve upvoted because I think it is valuable to share this kind of experience. I think sometimes this sort of thing can be subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle and either way, it still can be very unpleasant.
I feel like I very well could have made people feel judged without meaning to (I hope not though).
I am glad to hear your first two points. They do not match my experience. The third is less divergent, but also good news on the margin.
I think it is good practice to note strong disagreements where they exist, but also if I explained every strong disagreement I had I’d never finish the post, and also that would become the topic of discussion (as it partly is now) - I thought this was the right balance. I find your guess as to the reason interesting, as it is the ‘most paradigm affirming’ of the plausible strong disagreements, where it would be the right approach except there are psychological problems (which the paradigm acknowledges in general). I do think that’s a problem, but centrally that’s not it. The problem is closer to what Byrnes is talking about, that competition and preferentially wanting things locally are features rather than bugs, which includes but is broader than markets because the claim of full selflessness goes beyond not wanting to use markets.
I notice I have in the past made an attempt to write the post for that, but that my understandings and writing skills have expanded and my quick skim of it made me think it’s not as good as it could have been. But it’s what is available.
As for the part where I say I’m not allowed to say things, I am saying primarily not that the EA community in particular would be unwelcoming but that there are things that you can get cancelled or otherwise severely punished for saying on the internet, and I’m sure as hell not going to say them on the internet.
(+1)
I could be wrong, but I was figuring that here Zvi was coming from a pro-market perspective, i.e. the perspective in which Jeff Bezos has made the world a better place by founding Amazon and thus we can now get consumer goods more cheaply and conveniently etc. (But Jeff Bezos did so, presumably, out of a selfish desire to make money.)
I also suggest replacing “feels intellectually lazy” with something like “I know you’re busy but I sure hope you’ll find the time to spell out your thoughts on this topic in the future”. (In which case, I second that!)
After a PM conversation with Steve, and pending reviewing Zvi’s post more carefully, I’ll note:
I agree that Zvi probably meant something pro-market. (I mostly disagree that EA should be much more pro-market than it already is, but that’s not the main point here.)
Insofar as Zvi is attempting to make the reader believe without justification that EA is insufficiently pro-market, that’s intellectually lazy, but he’s probably just mentioning disagreements to set up the rest of his post rather than to convince, in which case it’s not intellectually lazy. So I retract “intellectually lazy.” (But it is frustrating to a reader who wants to know what Zvi really thinks and why, especially since this isn’t the first time Zvi has criticized EA obliquely.)
Who are some examples you have in mind of high-status critics of utilitarianism in EA?
This post seems to be written for people to change their mind about how criticism should be evaluated.
Currently, the background image for the Berlin EA group is an image of the Effective Altruism Unconference 2021.
I was surprised that their 2022 unconference was not listed as an event on their page. When I asked the explanation I got was that past unconferences gave German EA’s a reputation of being too hedonistic and that’s why it makes sense to not list the event publically on the EA forum.
A community where there’s a sense that a subgroup feels like being perceived as hedonistic is a problem for them seems to me not one that really cares about fun.