an observation I’ve had recently across a few examples* is that
criticizers acquire more social capital than doers (or celebraters of the doers)
criticizers tend to not pay attention to their social capital relative to the thing they are criticizing—criticizers with social status can easily shut down small or new doers, less so for established doers
criticizers gain enough social capital that they themselves become above (meaningful) criticism*
I get the idea that all arguments should be taken on their merits in a place like this, but in practice, it’s not that hard to imagine that a community that excessively rewards criticism becomes (ironically) prone to groupthink as a failure mode
*I’ve been sitting on this thought for a year or so but I don’t want to further name the examples because the criticizers I would criticize have more social capital than me and it could easily be bad for me to do so lol
obviously there’s not really any objective way to settle the matter, but I disagree that criticizers acquire more social capital than doers. When I think of the people who seem to me most prestigious in EA, it’s all people who got there by doing things, not by criticising anything.
I do agree that some people with a lot of social capital are seemingly oblivious to how that capital affects the weight of what they say, and I think it’s good to point out when this is happening, but the examples I can think of are still people who got that capital by doing things.
this could be true, i don’t have a good sense of who’s most prestigious in EA aside from the obvious* - my claim is more that i’ve seen this happen in examples and that it would be bad if that was happening all the time, but i am not attuned enough to broad EA social dynamics to know if that is happening all the time
*the obvious ones are the ones who are prestigious because they Did Something a long time ago, which I think doesn’t really count as a counterexample to the critical tendency as it manifests now
an observation I’ve had recently across a few examples* is that
criticizers acquire more social capital than doers (or celebraters of the doers)
criticizers tend to not pay attention to their social capital relative to the thing they are criticizing—criticizers with social status can easily shut down small or new doers, less so for established doers
criticizers gain enough social capital that they themselves become above (meaningful) criticism*
I get the idea that all arguments should be taken on their merits in a place like this, but in practice, it’s not that hard to imagine that a community that excessively rewards criticism becomes (ironically) prone to groupthink as a failure mode
*I’ve been sitting on this thought for a year or so but I don’t want to further name the examples because the criticizers I would criticize have more social capital than me and it could easily be bad for me to do so lol
obviously there’s not really any objective way to settle the matter, but I disagree that criticizers acquire more social capital than doers. When I think of the people who seem to me most prestigious in EA, it’s all people who got there by doing things, not by criticising anything.
I do agree that some people with a lot of social capital are seemingly oblivious to how that capital affects the weight of what they say, and I think it’s good to point out when this is happening, but the examples I can think of are still people who got that capital by doing things.
this could be true, i don’t have a good sense of who’s most prestigious in EA aside from the obvious* - my claim is more that i’ve seen this happen in examples and that it would be bad if that was happening all the time, but i am not attuned enough to broad EA social dynamics to know if that is happening all the time
*the obvious ones are the ones who are prestigious because they Did Something a long time ago, which I think doesn’t really count as a counterexample to the critical tendency as it manifests now