Paper books provide greater credibility than ebook-only because paper books normally go through a publisher who, because of the constraints in publishing physical books, is forced to determine whether the paper book meets some minimal standards of quality before publishing it. Publishing paper books just to gain credibility when they did not actually go through this process and the reasons to give them more credibility don’t apply, is a form of dark arts.
I can’t tell whether you mean something much more trivial by ‘dark arts’ than I do, or whether you really think even PR on this small a scale is dangerously corrosive of our core epistemic standards. (Or is otherwise nefarious.)
As a toy example, suppose I don’t usually wear suits, but I decide to wear a suit to a job interview or important meeting. Causally, this is useful in part because it’s misleading; it signals more wealth, status, and professionalism than is entirely representative of who I am. But concluding that suit-wearing is ‘dark arts’ for that reason is rather melodramatic, given that it’s so weakly and indirectly misleading, that it’s perfectly normal for people to signal in this fashion, and that it isn’t purely dishonest signaling. (Going to the trouble of publishing a book or wearing a suit does mean that you have more commitment and resources than a random person.)
Ditto ‘going out of your way in any fashion to impress people on first dates is Dark Arts because it doesn’t show them the Real You’, ‘putting extra money into making fancy business cards for your small business is Dark Arts because it makes you look like a bigger deal than you are’, etc. There’s a line we shouldn’t cross, yes, but it concerns signaling that’s much more extreme and unusual than any of these examples.
Memetically, yes, but note that nowadays you can set up print-on-demand through Amazon and sell paper books without having to go through a publisher. And, of course, vanity publishers have existed for a long time.
Publishers don’t, but they produce paper books which provide the credibility we’re talking about. The percentage of people who’ll be able to recognize the publisher as a vanity publisher is vanishingly small.
The same applies: paper books have credibility because publishers have to vet them. Self-publishing and relying on people’s inability to determine that the book is self-published is a form of dark arts, because it takes advantage of people’s ignorance to give the book credibility.
Only in the minds of “yay future!” sorts of people. My parents think self-publishing a non-fiction book is sketchy, and they have every valid reason for believing this. I agree with them, in fact.
Take the “outside view”: if someone handed you a book and said, “This describes the most important scientific and moral challenge of our times”, and you had never heard of MIRI/FHI/CFAR/LW in any way whatsoever, what are the questions you’re going to ask? They’ll almost definitely be credibility questions; you want to read a book that’s been edited well and comes from some kind of well-known intellectual expert on the topic being discussed, preferably one from very credible institutions like academia and government. You’re a non-expert, after all, and it’s not worth your time becoming an expert on some obscure, highly technical topic just to judge whether you should spend $30 on a book.
Luckily, information above indicates that FHI is publishing Superintelligence under the Oxford University label, with actual academic credentials and such, in hardback print. I’ll be waiting for that one before I recommend anything to “the normals”.
“This describes the most important scientific and moral challenge of our times”, and you had never heard of MIRI/FHI/CFAR/LW in any way whatsoever, what are the questions you’re going to ask?
“Why do you think so?”
They’ll almost definitely be credibility questions;
Not in my case.
you want to read a book that’s been edited well and comes from some kind of well-known intellectual expert on the topic being discussed, preferably one from very credible institutions like academia and government.
Oh, certainly not. Government is pretty much the opposite of a “credible institution” and as to academia, it depends on the field.
Traditional publishing is close to becoming an atavism, a vestigial remnant of the pre-digital age.
Digital or not, the fact that an article or book has passed the filter of a reputable publisher provides useful evidence in estimating its quality.
That’s most obvious for scientific publishing, where publishers employ expert editors and peer review. Publication of material intended for non-technical audiences has to meet lower standards, but there is still some level of editorial oversight.
Digital or not, the fact that an article or book has passed the filter of a reputable publisher provides useful evidence in estimating its quality.
Yep, the word for that is curating and it is a common and valuable activity. Art museums, for example, play a similar role. On the web brand-name blog collections (e.g. the Gawker stable) is also basically about the same thing—in this particular case, though, I don’t know if we’re talking about quality… :-D
Publishers aren’t interested in a book’s credibility except insofar as it affects its ability to drive sales. Self-publishing or vanity publishing isn’t evidence of inaccuracy or lack of intellectual integrity; it’s evidence of being boring, niche, poorly written, or otherwise of limited potential. That’s definitely not good news but it doesn’t qualify as “Dark Arts” by any means.
(Things are a little different in the academic press, but I don’t think that applies here.)
Normal publishers filter books for many aspects that would lead a reader to not want to read the book. While it’s true that not much filtering is done on accuracy and integrity, the aspects that the books are filtered on are still ones that typical readers care about. Relying on the user’s lack of knowledge of the publisher to make him think such filtering has been done, when it has not, is dark arts, deceptive, or whatever other term for bad things you like to use.
In other words, “I’m not tricking a user into reading an inaccurate book, I’m just tricking the user into reading a boring and poorly written book” isn’t an excuse.
Your line of argument looks strange to me. Basically, you are saying that any writer MUST go through gatekeepers to reach his readers and if he bypasses the gatekeepers that’s fraud and deceit upon the readers. I don’t find this approach reasonable.
I don’t think this situation can really be described as a trick.
The way I see it, the main services publishers provide are distribution, marketing, and to a lesser extent editing. Self-publish or go with a vanity publisher, and you’re going to have a harder time getting into bookstores or other content distributors, because you haven’t gone through their filters but also because you’re not playing the usual game. But that just means you need to establish the book’s worth yourself. The typical reader won’t be able to tell the difference, but in order to get your book to the typical reader, you need to jump through a lot of hoops that are more or less equivalent to what a publisher would be doing for you. And popularity of course is a vindication all its own (there have been successful self-published books, albeit not many).
Now, if the question was whether it’s ethical to claim the status you’d get from being picked up by a major publisher (“I’m a published author!”), then I’d be right there with you. But I don’t think that having a vanity-published book in the wild, or even pointing people to it, is equivalent to making that claim.
Sure, but that’s just editing. Which is one of the basic services of a publisher; they have an interest in catching your mistakes and generally helping you not look stupid, because that sells, but that’s not the same thing as being nontrivial evidence of intellectual credibility. Obvious bullshit and pseudoscience gets published all the time, because that sells.
Sorry. They hired someone to look at every footnote. If my footnote didn’t seem justified this fact checker asked me for justification or had me chance it.
Paper books provide greater credibility than ebook-only because paper books normally go through a publisher who, because of the constraints in publishing physical books, is forced to determine whether the paper book meets some minimal standards of quality before publishing it. Publishing paper books just to gain credibility when they did not actually go through this process and the reasons to give them more credibility don’t apply, is a form of dark arts.
I can’t tell whether you mean something much more trivial by ‘dark arts’ than I do, or whether you really think even PR on this small a scale is dangerously corrosive of our core epistemic standards. (Or is otherwise nefarious.)
As a toy example, suppose I don’t usually wear suits, but I decide to wear a suit to a job interview or important meeting. Causally, this is useful in part because it’s misleading; it signals more wealth, status, and professionalism than is entirely representative of who I am. But concluding that suit-wearing is ‘dark arts’ for that reason is rather melodramatic, given that it’s so weakly and indirectly misleading, that it’s perfectly normal for people to signal in this fashion, and that it isn’t purely dishonest signaling. (Going to the trouble of publishing a book or wearing a suit does mean that you have more commitment and resources than a random person.)
Ditto ‘going out of your way in any fashion to impress people on first dates is Dark Arts because it doesn’t show them the Real You’, ‘putting extra money into making fancy business cards for your small business is Dark Arts because it makes you look like a bigger deal than you are’, etc. There’s a line we shouldn’t cross, yes, but it concerns signaling that’s much more extreme and unusual than any of these examples.
Memetically, yes, but note that nowadays you can set up print-on-demand through Amazon and sell paper books without having to go through a publisher. And, of course, vanity publishers have existed for a long time.
And print-on-demand and vanity publishers don’t have credibility, for exactly that reason.
Publishers don’t, but they produce paper books which provide the credibility we’re talking about. The percentage of people who’ll be able to recognize the publisher as a vanity publisher is vanishingly small.
The same applies: paper books have credibility because publishers have to vet them. Self-publishing and relying on people’s inability to determine that the book is self-published is a form of dark arts, because it takes advantage of people’s ignorance to give the book credibility.
There can be a lot of valid reasons to self-publish besides”tak[ing] advantage of people’s ignorance”.
Traditional publishing is close to becoming an atavism, a vestigial remnant of the pre-digital age.
Only in the minds of “yay future!” sorts of people. My parents think self-publishing a non-fiction book is sketchy, and they have every valid reason for believing this. I agree with them, in fact.
Take the “outside view”: if someone handed you a book and said, “This describes the most important scientific and moral challenge of our times”, and you had never heard of MIRI/FHI/CFAR/LW in any way whatsoever, what are the questions you’re going to ask? They’ll almost definitely be credibility questions; you want to read a book that’s been edited well and comes from some kind of well-known intellectual expert on the topic being discussed, preferably one from very credible institutions like academia and government. You’re a non-expert, after all, and it’s not worth your time becoming an expert on some obscure, highly technical topic just to judge whether you should spend $30 on a book.
Luckily, information above indicates that FHI is publishing Superintelligence under the Oxford University label, with actual academic credentials and such, in hardback print. I’ll be waiting for that one before I recommend anything to “the normals”.
“Why do you think so?”
Not in my case.
Oh, certainly not. Government is pretty much the opposite of a “credible institution” and as to academia, it depends on the field.
Do you think your views on this matter are typical of the audience to whom the book is targeted?
Digital or not, the fact that an article or book has passed the filter of a reputable publisher provides useful evidence in estimating its quality.
That’s most obvious for scientific publishing, where publishers employ expert editors and peer review. Publication of material intended for non-technical audiences has to meet lower standards, but there is still some level of editorial oversight.
Yep, the word for that is curating and it is a common and valuable activity. Art museums, for example, play a similar role. On the web brand-name blog collections (e.g. the Gawker stable) is also basically about the same thing—in this particular case, though, I don’t know if we’re talking about quality… :-D
Publishers aren’t interested in a book’s credibility except insofar as it affects its ability to drive sales. Self-publishing or vanity publishing isn’t evidence of inaccuracy or lack of intellectual integrity; it’s evidence of being boring, niche, poorly written, or otherwise of limited potential. That’s definitely not good news but it doesn’t qualify as “Dark Arts” by any means.
(Things are a little different in the academic press, but I don’t think that applies here.)
Normal publishers filter books for many aspects that would lead a reader to not want to read the book. While it’s true that not much filtering is done on accuracy and integrity, the aspects that the books are filtered on are still ones that typical readers care about. Relying on the user’s lack of knowledge of the publisher to make him think such filtering has been done, when it has not, is dark arts, deceptive, or whatever other term for bad things you like to use.
In other words, “I’m not tricking a user into reading an inaccurate book, I’m just tricking the user into reading a boring and poorly written book” isn’t an excuse.
Your line of argument looks strange to me. Basically, you are saying that any writer MUST go through gatekeepers to reach his readers and if he bypasses the gatekeepers that’s fraud and deceit upon the readers. I don’t find this approach reasonable.
Choosing to self-publish your book with the intention of having your readers mistake it for a non-self-published book is deceptive.
I don’t think this situation can really be described as a trick.
The way I see it, the main services publishers provide are distribution, marketing, and to a lesser extent editing. Self-publish or go with a vanity publisher, and you’re going to have a harder time getting into bookstores or other content distributors, because you haven’t gone through their filters but also because you’re not playing the usual game. But that just means you need to establish the book’s worth yourself. The typical reader won’t be able to tell the difference, but in order to get your book to the typical reader, you need to jump through a lot of hoops that are more or less equivalent to what a publisher would be doing for you. And popularity of course is a vindication all its own (there have been successful self-published books, albeit not many).
Now, if the question was whether it’s ethical to claim the status you’d get from being picked up by a major publisher (“I’m a published author!”), then I’d be right there with you. But I don’t think that having a vanity-published book in the wild, or even pointing people to it, is equivalent to making that claim.
This isn’t true because publishers will often hire someone to go through all of your footnotes.
Sure, but that’s just editing. Which is one of the basic services of a publisher; they have an interest in catching your mistakes and generally helping you not look stupid, because that sells, but that’s not the same thing as being nontrivial evidence of intellectual credibility. Obvious bullshit and pseudoscience gets published all the time, because that sells.
It was a lot more than editing on my last book.
I was hoping the link would be to a description of what your publisher did for you.
Sorry. They hired someone to look at every footnote. If my footnote didn’t seem justified this fact checker asked me for justification or had me chance it.