I didn’t phrase this as clearly as I should have, but it seems to me that there are two separate issues here: firstly whether group X’s views are correct, and secondly whether group X uses a methodology that is tightly coupled to reality (in the sense of having tight feedback loops, or making clear predictions, or drawing on a lot of empirical evidence).
I interpret your critique of EA roughly as the claim that a lack of a tight methodological coupling to reality leads to a lack of correctness. My critique of the posts you linked is also that they lack tight methodological coupling to reality, in particular because they rely on high-level abstractions. I’m not confident about whether this means that they’re actually wrong, but it still seems like a problem.
I didn’t phrase this as clearly as I should have, but it seems to me that there are two separate issues here: firstly whether group X’s views are correct, and secondly whether group X uses a methodology that is tightly coupled to reality (in the sense of having tight feedback loops, or making clear predictions, or drawing on a lot of empirical evidence).
I interpret your critique of EA roughly as the claim that a lack of a tight methodological coupling to reality leads to a lack of correctness. My critique of the posts you linked is also that they lack tight methodological coupling to reality, in particular because they rely on high-level abstractions. I’m not confident about whether this means that they’re actually wrong, but it still seems like a problem.
Thanks… I think the first issue is much more important, and that’s what I want to focus on here.