I think itās important to exercise judgment here. Many (e.g. political) communities reflexively dismiss criticism, in ways that are epistemically irresponsible and lead them into pathology. Itās important to be more open-minded than that, and to have a general stance of being open to the possibility that one is wrong.
But thereās also a very real risk (sometimes realized, IMO, on this forum) of people going too far in the opposite direction and reflexivelyaccept criticism as apt or reasonable when it plainly isnāt. (This can take the form of downvoting or pushback against those of us who explain why a criticism is bad/āunreasonable.) Sometimes people enact a sort of performative open-mindedness which calls on them to welcome anti-EA criticism and reject criticism of that criticism more or less independently of the actual content or its merits. I find that very annoying.
(An example: when I first shared my āWhy Not Effective Altruism?ā draft, the feedback here seemed extremely negative and discouragingāsome even accused me of bad faith! -- because people didnāt like that I was criticizing the critics of EA. Now that itās published, many seem to appreciate the paper and agree that itās helpful. shrug.)
My sense is that this problem isnāt as bad now as in early 2023 when EA was going through a ridiculous self-flagellation phase.
What you call performative open-mindedness (I have been internally referring to it as epistemic virtue signaling) is a very real and important phenomenon, and one I wish people wrote about more and were more aware of.
Iām not sure if this is the same phenomenon, or a different phenomenon that uses the same word, but I see calls for āopen-mindednessā in the woo community. When expressing my disbelief in ghosts/āastrology/āESP/āetc., Iām told I āneed to be more open-mindedā.
Maybe I spoke too soon: it āseems unfairā to characterize Wenarās WIRED article as ādiscouraging life-saving aidā? (A comment that is immediately met with two agree votes!) The pathology lives on.
I think itās important to exercise judgment here. Many (e.g. political) communities reflexively dismiss criticism, in ways that are epistemically irresponsible and lead them into pathology. Itās important to be more open-minded than that, and to have a general stance of being open to the possibility that one is wrong.
But thereās also a very real risk (sometimes realized, IMO, on this forum) of people going too far in the opposite direction and reflexively accept criticism as apt or reasonable when it plainly isnāt. (This can take the form of downvoting or pushback against those of us who explain why a criticism is bad/āunreasonable.) Sometimes people enact a sort of performative open-mindedness which calls on them to welcome anti-EA criticism and reject criticism of that criticism more or less independently of the actual content or its merits. I find that very annoying.
(An example: when I first shared my āWhy Not Effective Altruism?ā draft, the feedback here seemed extremely negative and discouragingāsome even accused me of bad faith! -- because people didnāt like that I was criticizing the critics of EA. Now that itās published, many seem to appreciate the paper and agree that itās helpful. shrug.)
My sense is that this problem isnāt as bad now as in early 2023 when EA was going through a ridiculous self-flagellation phase.
What you call performative open-mindedness (I have been internally referring to it as epistemic virtue signaling) is a very real and important phenomenon, and one I wish people wrote about more and were more aware of.
Iām not sure if this is the same phenomenon, or a different phenomenon that uses the same word, but I see calls for āopen-mindednessā in the woo community. When expressing my disbelief in ghosts/āastrology/āESP/āetc., Iām told I āneed to be more open-mindedā.
Maybe I spoke too soon: it āseems unfairā to characterize Wenarās WIRED article as ādiscouraging life-saving aidā? (A comment that is immediately met with two agree votes!) The pathology lives on.