Glad to hear it.
But I think it’s probably a psychological fact that if a group of critics keeps calling your ideas some combination of “moral corruption”, “the dumbest idea”, “excuses for the rich” and “white supremacist/fascist”[2], then you’ll probably just stop responding to their work.
I understand. I never take this stuff personally myself. I even think it’s more important to engage with criticism (provided you are headstrong for it—at that time and place) if it’s espescially disagreeable/ hostile.
I haven’t read Crary but it’s on my list. The headline for McGoey’s piece is quite harsh, but there’s no real nice way to say some of these things (e.g. “excuses for the rich” isn’t that much nicer from what Kemp says about EA being captured by billionaire interests). These critics sincerely hold these positions—whilst it’s head for us to hear—it wouldn’t be right for them to water down their criticisms either.
And ultimately, doesn’t EA deserve harsh criticism, with the spate of scandals that have emerged & emerging? If it’s ultimately good for EA in the end—bring it on! More critcism is good.
Sorry Richard, I meant no disrepsect. And I appreciate you acknowledging that there are leftsist EAs.
Without wanting to do guilt-by-association, I simply wanted to express that there would have been a clear benefit to having a more left-wing EA, since leftists are more critical of cryptocurrencies etc. There were many EAs who did the right thing warning about cryptocurrency/SBF, but they were smaller in number, and overlooked by the community. So apologies I went too far maligning all libertarians/non-leftists.