I donât see how asking for higher standards for criticism makes EA defenseless against âbullshit.â
I actually would argue the opposite: if we keep encouraging and incentivizing any kind of criticism, and tolerate needlessly acrimonious personal attacks, we end up in an environment where nobody proposes anything besides the status quo, and the status quo becomes increasingly less transparent.
@Happier Lives Institute stopped writing their criticism of/âalternatives to GiveWell in part because some criticism they got was largely personal attacks
I think Holly_Elmore herself is another example: she used to write posts like âWe are in triage every second of every dayâ, which I think are very useful to make EA less âbullshitâ, but now mostly doesnât post on this forum, partly because of the bad quality costly criticism she receives.
I think the average comment is just a bit less argumentative /â critical than would be ideal.
I think the average critical comment is less kind than would be ideal.
I want criticism to be kind, but I also want it to exist, and pushing people to be kinder might also reduce the overall quantity of criticism. Iâm not sure what the best realistic outcome is.
I personally fear that the current discussion environment on this forum errs too much in the âunkind criticismâ direction, and I see at least two large downsides:
It encourages some form of âenlightened immobilismâ, where anyone proposing doing anything differently from the status quo gets instantly shut down.
It strongly discourages transparency from most projects, especially (but not exclusively) less established or more speculative ones.
I believe that a culture of more constructive and higher-quality criticism would encourage more discussion overall, not less, especially from experienced professionals who have different perspectives from mainline EA thinking.
It encourages some form of âenlightened immobilismâ, where anyone proposing doing anything differently from the status quo gets instantly shut down.
I think telling people to critique less is a suboptimal solution for this. At least in theory, itâs more ideal for people to be willing to do things despite getting critiques.
Someone can write a critique for anything. Instead of checking if thereâs a critique, you could check âdoes a neutral party think this critique is stronger than average for a random EA projectâ or something like that. (If the project is weaker than average in light of the critique, that suggests resources should perhaps be reallocated.)
Downside risk is everywhere, and its mere existence shouldnât be sufficient to cause inaction.
I donât see how asking for higher standards for criticism makes EA defenseless against âbullshit.â
I actually would argue the opposite: if we keep encouraging and incentivizing any kind of criticism, and tolerate needlessly acrimonious personal attacks, we end up in an environment where nobody proposes anything besides the status quo, and the status quo becomes increasingly less transparent.
Three recent examples that come to mind:
User @Omega stopped writing their criticism of AI Safety organizations partly because of how the criticism of their criticism assumed bad faith
@Happier Lives Institute stopped writing their criticism of/âalternatives to GiveWell in part because some criticism they got was largely personal attacks
@Dustin Moskovitz claims that they[1] write less on this forum because of attacks from EAs. He also wrote the attitude in EA communities is âgive an inch, fight a mileâ. So Iâll choose to be less legible instead.
I think Holly_Elmore herself is another example: she used to write posts like âWe are in triage every second of every dayâ, which I think are very useful to make EA less âbullshitâ, but now mostly doesnât post on this forum, partly because of the bad quality costly criticism she receives.
I largely agree with the last section of this comment from Aaron Gertler written one year ago:
I personally fear that the current discussion environment on this forum errs too much in the âunkind criticismâ direction, and I see at least two large downsides:
It encourages some form of âenlightened immobilismâ, where anyone proposing doing anything differently from the status quo gets instantly shut down.
It strongly discourages transparency from most projects, especially (but not exclusively) less established or more speculative ones.
I used to think that accepting callousness was required to have technical excellence, e.g. reading how people like famous software engineer Linus Torvalds used to communicate. After seeing many extremely competent people communicate criticism in a professional and constructive manner, I have completely changed my mind. Torvalds also apologised and changed communication style years ago.
I believe that a culture of more constructive and higher-quality criticism would encourage more discussion overall, not less, especially from experienced professionals who have different perspectives from mainline EA thinking.
See also this paragraph from the Charity Entrepreneurship handbook:
Writing as myself, not as a moderator
Iâm not sure if he meant Good Ventures, Open Philanthropy, or some other group
I think telling people to critique less is a suboptimal solution for this. At least in theory, itâs more ideal for people to be willing to do things despite getting critiques.
Someone can write a critique for anything. Instead of checking if thereâs a critique, you could check âdoes a neutral party think this critique is stronger than average for a random EA projectâ or something like that. (If the project is weaker than average in light of the critique, that suggests resources should perhaps be reallocated.)
Downside risk is everywhere, and its mere existence shouldnât be sufficient to cause inaction.