Hi Remmelt, thanks for your response. Iâm currently travelling so have limited bandwidth to go into a full response, and suspect that itâd make more sense for us to pick this up in DMs again (or at EAG London if youâll be around?)
Some important points I think I should share my perspective on though:
One can think that both Ămile and âFuentesâ behaved badly. Iâm not trying to defend the latter here and they clearly arenât impartial. Iâm less interested in defending Fuentes than trying to point out that Ămile shouldnât be considered a good-faith critic of EA. I think your concerns about Andreas, for example, apply at least tenfold to Ămile.
I donât consider myself an âEA insiderâ, and I donât consider myself having that weight in the Community. I havenât worked at an EA org, I havenât received any money from OpenPhil, Iâve never gone to the Co-ordination Forum etc. I think of A-E, the only one Iâm claiming support for is Dâif Ămile is untrustworthy and often flagrantly wrong/âbiased/âinaccurate then it is a bad sign to not recognise this. The crux then, is whether Ămile is that wrong/âbiased/âinaccurate, which is a matter on which we clearly disagree.[1] One can definitely support other critiques of EA, and it certainly doesnât mean EA is immune to criticism or that it shouldnât be open to hearing them.
Iâll leave it at that for now. Perhaps we can pick this up again in DMs or a Calendly call :) And just want to clarify that I do admire you and your work even if I donât agree with your conclusions. I think youâre a much better EA critic (to the extent you identify as one) than Ămile is.
I agree you can have two bad actors at once. The fact that one bad actor is writing distorted critiques that misportray another, does not mean the other person is actually behaving well. The thing I find tough to unpack here is that some (not all) of the critiques Iâve read from you come straight from this fake âFuentesâ account. Given that the person behind that account is misportraying themselves and Ămile in obvious places (I already gave a few examples), I would be very careful to not take their critiques at face value. Some years ago, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about a hypothetical scenario where one agent is trying to make you believe X is true even if itâs false, and provides very convincing arguments that X is true anyway. How much should you âupdateâ on their arguments that X is true anyway?
Good nuance. I did not mean to say that youâre a âcoreâ EA person. Please do consider that if youâre going to take this in your own hands (hopefully not Thanos style!) to defend EA from an outsider whose critiques are making EA look bad, then naturally youâll get many upvotes from members of this community backing you up. Me writing dissonating comments like these on the EA Forum (despite that EAs like you know me) is putting myself into a minority position, where I make myself wide open to being socially discredited from any angle found by any member motivated against. I hesitate to use this analogy, but itâs a bit like returning to a circle of devout Christians to clear the name of an atheist, who turned out to be wrongly accused by an anonymous Christian. This is not a neutral context of conversation, and experiencing that is not pleasant. I think you did not quite consider this in how you worded your initial reply.
[splitting this out from 2.] Where I agree with you is that Ămile has repeatedly made overgeneralised blanket statements about people tied to the EA community. And Iâve been correcting Ămile on this (eg. see point 1. here: https://ââx.com/ââRemmeltE/ââstatus/ââ1695071975096340480), in a similar way as I did when advising Glen Weyl against publishing an overgeneralised caustic media article against EA (which along with feedback from someone else, made Glen decide not to publish). I donât want illegitimate critiques of EA to be shared around, because it makes EAs close off to outside critiques and devote less energy to listening for where to change harmful mindsets/âactivities in the community.
Perhaps we can pick this up again in DMs or a Calendly call :)
Happy to have a call in a few weeksâ time. Letâs wait until after Ămileâs essays regarding accusations and identity by âFuentesâ are (hopefully) out.
And just want to clarify that I do admire you and your work even if I donât agree with your conclusions. I think youâre a much better EA critic (to the extent you identify as one) than Ămile is.
Appreciating your considerate words here. Thank you.
Happy to have a call in a few weeksâ time. Letâs wait until after Ămileâs essays regarding accusations and identity by âFuentesâ are (hopefully) out.
I previously thought Mark Fuentes was someone ~ unaffiliated with this community. The article seemed to present enough evidence that I no longer believe this. (It also made me downwards somewhat on the claims in the Fuentes post, but not enough to get to pre-reading-the-post levels).
Hi Remmelt, thanks for your response. Iâm currently travelling so have limited bandwidth to go into a full response, and suspect that itâd make more sense for us to pick this up in DMs again (or at EAG London if youâll be around?)
Some important points I think I should share my perspective on though:
One can think that both Ămile and âFuentesâ behaved badly. Iâm not trying to defend the latter here and they clearly arenât impartial. Iâm less interested in defending Fuentes than trying to point out that Ămile shouldnât be considered a good-faith critic of EA. I think your concerns about Andreas, for example, apply at least tenfold to Ămile.
I donât consider myself an âEA insiderâ, and I donât consider myself having that weight in the Community. I havenât worked at an EA org, I havenât received any money from OpenPhil, Iâve never gone to the Co-ordination Forum etc. I think of A-E, the only one Iâm claiming support for is Dâif Ămile is untrustworthy and often flagrantly wrong/âbiased/âinaccurate then it is a bad sign to not recognise this. The crux then, is whether Ămile is that wrong/âbiased/âinaccurate, which is a matter on which we clearly disagree.[1] One can definitely support other critiques of EA, and it certainly doesnât mean EA is immune to criticism or that it shouldnât be open to hearing them.
Iâll leave it at that for now. Perhaps we can pick this up again in DMs or a Calendly call :) And just want to clarify that I do admire you and your work even if I donât agree with your conclusions. I think youâre a much better EA critic (to the extent you identify as one) than Ămile is.
I really donât want to have to be the person to step up and push against them, but it seems like nobody else is willing to do it
Hi JWS,
Responding to your thoughtful points:
I agree you can have two bad actors at once. The fact that one bad actor is writing distorted critiques that misportray another, does not mean the other person is actually behaving well. The thing I find tough to unpack here is that some (not all) of the critiques Iâve read from you come straight from this fake âFuentesâ account. Given that the person behind that account is misportraying themselves and Ămile in obvious places (I already gave a few examples), I would be very careful to not take their critiques at face value. Some years ago, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about a hypothetical scenario where one agent is trying to make you believe X is true even if itâs false, and provides very convincing arguments that X is true anyway. How much should you âupdateâ on their arguments that X is true anyway?
Good nuance. I did not mean to say that youâre a âcoreâ EA person. Please do consider that if youâre going to take this in your own hands (hopefully not Thanos style!) to defend EA from an outsider whose critiques are making EA look bad, then naturally youâll get many upvotes from members of this community backing you up. Me writing dissonating comments like these on the EA Forum (despite that EAs like you know me) is putting myself into a minority position, where I make myself wide open to being socially discredited from any angle found by any member motivated against. I hesitate to use this analogy, but itâs a bit like returning to a circle of devout Christians to clear the name of an atheist, who turned out to be wrongly accused by an anonymous Christian. This is not a neutral context of conversation, and experiencing that is not pleasant. I think you did not quite consider this in how you worded your initial reply.
[splitting this out from 2.] Where I agree with you is that Ămile has repeatedly made overgeneralised blanket statements about people tied to the EA community. And Iâve been correcting Ămile on this (eg. see point 1. here: https://ââx.com/ââRemmeltE/ââstatus/ââ1695071975096340480), in a similar way as I did when advising Glen Weyl against publishing an overgeneralised caustic media article against EA (which along with feedback from someone else, made Glen decide not to publish). I donât want illegitimate critiques of EA to be shared around, because it makes EAs close off to outside critiques and devote less energy to listening for where to change harmful mindsets/âactivities in the community.
Happy to have a call in a few weeksâ time. Letâs wait until after Ămileâs essays regarding accusations and identity by âFuentesâ are (hopefully) out.
Appreciating your considerate words here. Thank you.
See Ămileâs substack: https://ââmileptorres.substack.com/ââ
The article is enough to change my mind, personally.
Change your mind in what way? Could you elaborate a bit?
I previously thought Mark Fuentes was someone ~ unaffiliated with this community. The article seemed to present enough evidence that I no longer believe this. (It also made me downwards somewhat on the claims in the Fuentes post, but not enough to get to pre-reading-the-post levels).