(Written in a personal capacity, unrelated to my job)
I agree with some of this, but not the last sentence.
Emileās audience is very different from CEAās audience (or the audience of anyone in EA). Many people will āfind outā things from them, regardless of how EA orgs share information.
I also think they would have written exactly the same Twitter thread regardless of what was shared, for exactly the same audience (people who follow them specifically to see exaggerated takedowns of EA-related things). A public post about the Abbey probably kicks off that thread earlier, but I donāt think it changes the content.
In general, thinking about what Torres will say is of limited use, because they tend to show everything in the worst possible light (often lying in order to do so).
Good point, I didnāt make clear what I meant with the last sentence. Would this rephrasing make sense to you?
If people are finding out about āEA buying a castleā from Ćmile Torres or the New Yorker and we canāt point to any kind of public statement or justification, then weāre probably doing something wrong
I also agree the content of some of these criticisms wouldnāt change even if there were a public post, but I donāt think the same applies to peopleās responses to it. If a reasonable person stumbles across Torres or the New Yorker criticizing EA for buying a castle, they would probably be a lot more forgiving towards EA if they can be pointed to a page on CEAās website that provides an explanation behind the decision, written before any of these criticisms, as opposed to finding a complete lack of records or acknowledgements on (C)EAās side.
In general, taking reasoning transparency more seriously seems like low hanging fruit for making the communication from EA orgs to both the movement and the public at large more robust, though I might be missing something, in which case Iād love if someone could point it out to me.
I think that the existence of a page would mollify maybe 10% of the people who liked Torresā post, and it also runs the risk of sparking additional attention (maybe drawing in people to attack EV for running so many events or providing material for people to quote-tweet derisively).
I believe in reasoning transparency and try to write up my own decisions in a lot of detail. I think this is a good thing to do for the sake of the people who like and care about your work. But I donāt expect it to help much with motivated critics or the general public.
(One counterpoint: If anyone from the general public cares about long explanatory writeups on the economics of buying an abbey, Iād expect those people to be the types most likely to become interested in EA. But those are also the people Iād expect to not be engaging with Torres, so I donāt know how big the effect is.)
One counterpoint: If anyone from the general public cares about long explanatory writeups on the economics of buying an abbey, Iād expect those people to be the types most likely to become interested in EA. But those are also the people Iād expect to not be engaging with Torres, so I donāt know how big the effect is.
Iām unconvinced by this partāI think that Torres is clearly a bad faith actor, but am sure this isnāt legible to many in their audience. I expect they appeal to different subcultures, but that at least some of their audience would be EA receptive.
(Written in a personal capacity, unrelated to my job)
I agree with some of this, but not the last sentence.
Emileās audience is very different from CEAās audience (or the audience of anyone in EA). Many people will āfind outā things from them, regardless of how EA orgs share information.
I also think they would have written exactly the same Twitter thread regardless of what was shared, for exactly the same audience (people who follow them specifically to see exaggerated takedowns of EA-related things). A public post about the Abbey probably kicks off that thread earlier, but I donāt think it changes the content.
In general, thinking about what Torres will say is of limited use, because they tend to show everything in the worst possible light (often lying in order to do so).
Good point, I didnāt make clear what I meant with the last sentence. Would this rephrasing make sense to you?
I also agree the content of some of these criticisms wouldnāt change even if there were a public post, but I donāt think the same applies to peopleās responses to it. If a reasonable person stumbles across Torres or the New Yorker criticizing EA for buying a castle, they would probably be a lot more forgiving towards EA if they can be pointed to a page on CEAās website that provides an explanation behind the decision, written before any of these criticisms, as opposed to finding a complete lack of records or acknowledgements on (C)EAās side.
In general, taking reasoning transparency more seriously seems like low hanging fruit for making the communication from EA orgs to both the movement and the public at large more robust, though I might be missing something, in which case Iād love if someone could point it out to me.
I think that the existence of a page would mollify maybe 10% of the people who liked Torresā post, and it also runs the risk of sparking additional attention (maybe drawing in people to attack EV for running so many events or providing material for people to quote-tweet derisively).
I believe in reasoning transparency and try to write up my own decisions in a lot of detail. I think this is a good thing to do for the sake of the people who like and care about your work. But I donāt expect it to help much with motivated critics or the general public.
(One counterpoint: If anyone from the general public cares about long explanatory writeups on the economics of buying an abbey, Iād expect those people to be the types most likely to become interested in EA. But those are also the people Iād expect to not be engaging with Torres, so I donāt know how big the effect is.)
I think that sort of long writeup can help signal thoughtfulness even if people arenāt actually going to read through it
Iām unconvinced by this partāI think that Torres is clearly a bad faith actor, but am sure this isnāt legible to many in their audience. I expect they appeal to different subcultures, but that at least some of their audience would be EA receptive.
FYI: I added a brief explanation of why we hadnāt posted publicly about it before now to the end of my answer.