It is possible that many complaints about Torres are true and also that Torres raises important concerns. I would not like to see personal criticism of Torres become a substitute for engagement with criticism by Torres.
I sometimes worry that concern about Torres has made the community less receptive to any criticism of racism, whether or not raised by Torres. That strikes me as an outcome that should definitely be avoided.
Again, a fan of you and your approach David, but I think you underestimate just how hostile/toxic Émile has been toward all of EA. I think it’s very fair to substitute one for the other, and it’s the kind of thing we do all the time in real, social settings. In a way, you seem to be emulating a hardcore ‘decoupling’ mindset here.
Like, at risk of being inflammatory, an intuition pump from your perspective might be:
It is possible that many complaints about Trump are true and also that Trump raises important concerns. I would not like to see personal criticism of Trump become a substitute for engagement with criticism by Trump.
I think many EAs view ‘engagement with criticism by Torres’ in the same way that you’d see ‘engagement with criticism by Trump’, that the critic is just so toxic/bad-faith that nothing good can come of engagement.
As a tangent, I think EAs should avoid using partisan political examples as intuition pumps for situations like this.
Liberals might think that ‘engagement with criticism by Trump’ would be worthless. But conservative crypto investors might think ‘engagement with criticism by Elizabeth Warren’ would be equally worthless.
Let’s try to set aside the reflexive Trump-bashing.
As far as not interacting with someone, there are lots of people I ignore on the basis of bad behavior. As far as not taking the types of concerns they raise seriously, I’d like to think that it’s possible to separate the person from the concerns.
For example, in my discipline (philosophy) there is a truly excellent ranking of philosophy departments. It’s also run by a terrible human being. Most of us still use the ranking, just with the warning not to engage with this individual, which we repeat to our students.
Have you seen people dismiss concerns because Torres shares them (as opposed to dismissing Torres as a source)? I haven’t, but I’m sure it’s happening somewhere. I agree that would be bad epistemics.
Fully agree on paragraph two. On paragraph one, I do think certain past conduct could justify dismissal of a critic without engagement on the merits, such as a bad enough history of unfair and arguably dishonest quotations/citations.
Once you can’t trust the other dialogue partner not to do that, the conversation is over. And I dont think anyone should feel an obligation to cite-check bad work. If one has reached that point—I express no opinion as one who has generally kept a distance from Torres drama—it would be reasonable to respond only to work that had been vetted by reputable publications, or that had other legible indicia of trustworthiness.
I’m starting to think that I need to write these up. I thought you folks knew. I don’t think the EA community will react very well if I do write these up, so I have tended to hold off.
I think that would be helpful—Torres is just not the right messenger for this message in my opinion. The community has made up its mind on them, and there have been enough allegations of harassment on both sides that many voices in the middle would probably nope out of a Torres—EA Orthodoxy dialogue/debate.
Pleasantly surprised by this (ditto for David Mathers’ comment). Maybe I will try this? I care a great deal about this issue, but not (yet) enough to burn my ability to speak with EAs.
You should absolutely do it, and I would agree that you probably would not receive material backlash.
But I would be careful to assume that your success means that any plain old person can critique EA and receive a warm reception.
You’ve spent a long time building amicable relationships with EAs (I suspect by walking on eggshells, self-censoring—hope I am not being presumptuous here David).
I feel a bit worried that everyone would like to believe that EAs will receive criticism in good faith, so they will be excited to tell you this is true, even if they can’t really be that confident. I hope they’re right, but worry they’re really saying “I, personally, would receive this in good faith, and I think others ought to, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t” or something like that.
I would guess from things like the Bostrom email controversy that you’ll get at least a couple of frustrating comments, and perhaps a small handful people who will be reflexively and unfairly judgemental. I would hope and guess that these experiences will be outweighed by people being grateful for you raising your concerns, including from people who ultimately disagree with the concerns. But obviously it’s hard to be sure (even harder given that I don’t know what the concerns are).
I’m a bit worried this comment raises the barrier to commentary, so let me try to lower it by saying you can feel free to DM me if you think talking to me privately about your post will help you get it published :)
You are a polite and careful critic, I think you will not get a mega-hostile reaction from most people. (If the worry is just that you won’t persuade, then, well, you’re not making things worse.)
It is possible that many complaints about Torres are true and also that Torres raises important concerns. I would not like to see personal criticism of Torres become a substitute for engagement with criticism by Torres.
I sometimes worry that concern about Torres has made the community less receptive to any criticism of racism, whether or not raised by Torres. That strikes me as an outcome that should definitely be avoided.
Again, a fan of you and your approach David, but I think you underestimate just how hostile/toxic Émile has been toward all of EA. I think it’s very fair to substitute one for the other, and it’s the kind of thing we do all the time in real, social settings. In a way, you seem to be emulating a hardcore ‘decoupling’ mindset here.
Like, at risk of being inflammatory, an intuition pump from your perspective might be:
I think many EAs view ‘engagement with criticism by Torres’ in the same way that you’d see ‘engagement with criticism by Trump’, that the critic is just so toxic/bad-faith that nothing good can come of engagement.
As a tangent, I think EAs should avoid using partisan political examples as intuition pumps for situations like this.
Liberals might think that ‘engagement with criticism by Trump’ would be worthless. But conservative crypto investors might think ‘engagement with criticism by Elizabeth Warren’ would be equally worthless.
Let’s try to set aside the reflexive Trump-bashing.
Is there any level of bad behavior that you think merits totally ignoring someone? Where is that line for you?
As far as not interacting with someone, there are lots of people I ignore on the basis of bad behavior. As far as not taking the types of concerns they raise seriously, I’d like to think that it’s possible to separate the person from the concerns.
For example, in my discipline (philosophy) there is a truly excellent ranking of philosophy departments. It’s also run by a terrible human being. Most of us still use the ranking, just with the warning not to engage with this individual, which we repeat to our students.
Have you seen people dismiss concerns because Torres shares them (as opposed to dismissing Torres as a source)? I haven’t, but I’m sure it’s happening somewhere. I agree that would be bad epistemics.
Fully agree on paragraph two. On paragraph one, I do think certain past conduct could justify dismissal of a critic without engagement on the merits, such as a bad enough history of unfair and arguably dishonest quotations/citations.
Once you can’t trust the other dialogue partner not to do that, the conversation is over. And I dont think anyone should feel an obligation to cite-check bad work. If one has reached that point—I express no opinion as one who has generally kept a distance from Torres drama—it would be reasonable to respond only to work that had been vetted by reputable publications, or that had other legible indicia of trustworthiness.
What specific criticisms of racism do you mean?
I’m starting to think that I need to write these up. I thought you folks knew. I don’t think the EA community will react very well if I do write these up, so I have tended to hold off.
I think that would be helpful—Torres is just not the right messenger for this message in my opinion. The community has made up its mind on them, and there have been enough allegations of harassment on both sides that many voices in the middle would probably nope out of a Torres—EA Orthodoxy dialogue/debate.
Pleasantly surprised by this (ditto for David Mathers’ comment). Maybe I will try this? I care a great deal about this issue, but not (yet) enough to burn my ability to speak with EAs.
I’d be very surprised if this burnt your ability to speak with EAs.
You should absolutely do it, and I would agree that you probably would not receive material backlash.
But I would be careful to assume that your success means that any plain old person can critique EA and receive a warm reception.
You’ve spent a long time building amicable relationships with EAs (I suspect by walking on eggshells, self-censoring—hope I am not being presumptuous here David).
<3
I feel a bit worried that everyone would like to believe that EAs will receive criticism in good faith, so they will be excited to tell you this is true, even if they can’t really be that confident. I hope they’re right, but worry they’re really saying “I, personally, would receive this in good faith, and I think others ought to, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t” or something like that.
I would guess from things like the Bostrom email controversy that you’ll get at least a couple of frustrating comments, and perhaps a small handful people who will be reflexively and unfairly judgemental. I would hope and guess that these experiences will be outweighed by people being grateful for you raising your concerns, including from people who ultimately disagree with the concerns. But obviously it’s hard to be sure (even harder given that I don’t know what the concerns are).
I’m a bit worried this comment raises the barrier to commentary, so let me try to lower it by saying you can feel free to DM me if you think talking to me privately about your post will help you get it published :)
You are a polite and careful critic, I think you will not get a mega-hostile reaction from most people. (If the worry is just that you won’t persuade, then, well, you’re not making things worse.)