(this point is different enough I decided to make a separate comment for it)
I feel like when people talk about criticism on the Forum, they often point to how it can be very emotionally difficult for the person being criticised, and then I feel like they stop and say âthis means thereâs something wrong with how we do criticism, and we should change it until itâs not like thisâ.
I think this is overly optimistic. I find it highly implausible that thereâs some way we could be, some tone we could set, that would make criticism not hurt. It hurts to be wrong, and it hurts more to hear this from other people, and it hurts more if youâre hearing it unexpectedly. These pains are dramatically worsened by hostility or insensitivity or other markers of bad criticism, but even if you do everything youâre supposed to in tone and delivery, the truth is going to hurt, and sometimes itâs going to hurt a lot.
So, even perfect criticism hurts. Moreover, itâs highly implausible that we can aspire to perfect criticism, or a particularly great approximation to it. Anywhere on the forum, people get misread, people fail to make their point clearly, people have tricky and complex ideas that take a lot of digesting to make sense. In criticism, all of that happens in an emotionally volatile environment. It takes a lot of discipline to stay friendly in that context, and I donât think the fact that it sometimes doesnât happen is a uniquely EA failure. No-one anywhere has criticism that stays clean and charitable all the time. If youâre thinking âhow are we going to ensure that bad ideas donât absorb attention and funding and other resources that could have gone to good ideasâ, I really struggle to imagine a system that always avoids arguments and hostility, and I think the EA forum honestly does better than the peers I can think of.
Weâre all here to do things we think are important and high-stakes, involving the suffering of those we care about. Itâs going to be emotionally fraught. People who write critical comments should try hard to do so in a way that minimises the harm they cause. IMO there should also be more said on the Forum about how people can receive criticism in a way that minimises harm (primarily to them, but perhaps also to others). I do think that âsometimes just ignore the criticismâ is good advice, actually. But I donât think we should aspire to âpeople arenât upset by what is said on the Forumâ, or âposting about your project on the Forum doesnât make you anxiousâ. Reduce these things as much as possible, but be realistic about how much is possible.
No desire to close down ideas for how to make things better. Please do continue to think and talk about whether criticism on the Forum could be done better. But I want better indicators of disease than âpeople are hurt when other people tell them they donât like their workâ.
I think the disease here is not my feelings being hurt but the conversation being bad and us valuing the wrong things. Criticism is easy because you just have to be a referee and notice if someone did anything imperfectly. When we clamor for any and all criticism then the criticism doesnât have to be useful or good. Allowing ourselves to gravitate toward banal and nitpicky criticisms as the heart of our discourse is at least as bad as Charity Navigator being focused on overhead!
Doing real good probably requires some criticism, but it requires a lot else that is neglected when criticism is easy and sanctified, like taking the risk of doing things and supporting people who are doing things.
(this point is different enough I decided to make a separate comment for it)
I feel like when people talk about criticism on the Forum, they often point to how it can be very emotionally difficult for the person being criticised, and then I feel like they stop and say âthis means thereâs something wrong with how we do criticism, and we should change it until itâs not like thisâ.
I think this is overly optimistic. I find it highly implausible that thereâs some way we could be, some tone we could set, that would make criticism not hurt. It hurts to be wrong, and it hurts more to hear this from other people, and it hurts more if youâre hearing it unexpectedly. These pains are dramatically worsened by hostility or insensitivity or other markers of bad criticism, but even if you do everything youâre supposed to in tone and delivery, the truth is going to hurt, and sometimes itâs going to hurt a lot.
So, even perfect criticism hurts. Moreover, itâs highly implausible that we can aspire to perfect criticism, or a particularly great approximation to it. Anywhere on the forum, people get misread, people fail to make their point clearly, people have tricky and complex ideas that take a lot of digesting to make sense. In criticism, all of that happens in an emotionally volatile environment. It takes a lot of discipline to stay friendly in that context, and I donât think the fact that it sometimes doesnât happen is a uniquely EA failure. No-one anywhere has criticism that stays clean and charitable all the time. If youâre thinking âhow are we going to ensure that bad ideas donât absorb attention and funding and other resources that could have gone to good ideasâ, I really struggle to imagine a system that always avoids arguments and hostility, and I think the EA forum honestly does better than the peers I can think of.
Weâre all here to do things we think are important and high-stakes, involving the suffering of those we care about. Itâs going to be emotionally fraught. People who write critical comments should try hard to do so in a way that minimises the harm they cause. IMO there should also be more said on the Forum about how people can receive criticism in a way that minimises harm (primarily to them, but perhaps also to others). I do think that âsometimes just ignore the criticismâ is good advice, actually. But I donât think we should aspire to âpeople arenât upset by what is said on the Forumâ, or âposting about your project on the Forum doesnât make you anxiousâ. Reduce these things as much as possible, but be realistic about how much is possible.
No desire to close down ideas for how to make things better. Please do continue to think and talk about whether criticism on the Forum could be done better. But I want better indicators of disease than âpeople are hurt when other people tell them they donât like their workâ.
I think the disease here is not my feelings being hurt but the conversation being bad and us valuing the wrong things. Criticism is easy because you just have to be a referee and notice if someone did anything imperfectly. When we clamor for any and all criticism then the criticism doesnât have to be useful or good. Allowing ourselves to gravitate toward banal and nitpicky criticisms as the heart of our discourse is at least as bad as Charity Navigator being focused on overhead!
Doing real good probably requires some criticism, but it requires a lot else that is neglected when criticism is easy and sanctified, like taking the risk of doing things and supporting people who are doing things.