There’s absolutely nothing that Zack is currently accomplishing that couldn’t have been accomplished if he’d first written a comment to Rob saying “did you mean X?” [...] Acting like a refusal to employ that bare minimum of social grace is a virtue is bullshit
It’s not that I think refusing to employ the bare minimum of social grace is a virtue. It’s that I wasn’t aware—in fact, am still not aware—that confirming interpretations with the original author before publishing a critical essay constitutes the bare minimum of social grace. The idea that it’s somehow bad behavior for intellectuals to publish essays about other intellectuals’ essays without checking with the original author first is something I’ve never heard before; I think unilaterally publishing critical essays is a completely normal thing that intellectuals do all the time, and I see no particular reason for self-identified “rationalist” intellectuals to behave any differently.
For an arbitrary example from our local subculture, Yudkowsky once wrote “A Reply to Francois Chollet” criticizing Chollet’s essay on the purported impossibility of an intelligence explosion. Did Yudkowsky first write an email to Chollet saying “did you mean X”? I don’t know, but I would guess not; if Chollet stands by the text he published, and Yudkowsky doesn’t feel uncertain about how to interpret the text, it’s not clear how either of their interests would be served by Yudkowsky sending an email first rather than just publishing the post.
I didn’t check with Leong beforehand. I didn’t check with Yudkowsky beforehand. I didn’t check with Weatherall or O’Connor or Bostrom or Shulman beforehand. No one told me I should have checked with Leong or Yudkowsky or Weatherall or O’Connor or Bostrom or Shulman beforehand. It’s just never been brought up as a problem or an offense before, ever.
Most of these authors are much more important people than me who are probably very busy. If someone had told me I should have checked with the authors beforehand, I think I would have said, “Wouldn’t that be disrespectful of their time?”
I do often notify the author after I’ve published a reaction piece. In the case of the current post, I unfortunately neglected to do so, but after seeing your comment, I did reach out to Rob, and he left afewcomments. Notably, in response to my comment about my motivations for writing this post, Rob writes:
Seems great to me! I share your intuition that Goodwill seems a bit odd to include. I think it’s right to push back on proposed norms like these and talk about how justified they are, and I hope my list can be the start of a conversation like that rather than the end.
This would seem to be pretty strong counterevidence against the claim that I failed to employ the bare minimum of social grace (at least as that minimum is construed by Rob himself)?
It’s not that I think refusing to employ the bare minimum of social grace is a virtue. It’s that I wasn’t aware—in fact, am still not aware—that confirming interpretations with the original author before publishing a critical essay constitutes the bare minimum of social grace. The idea that it’s somehow bad behavior for intellectuals to publish essays about other intellectuals’ essays without checking with the original author first is something I’ve never heard before; I think unilaterally publishing critical essays is a completely normal thing that intellectuals do all the time, and I see no particular reason for self-identified “rationalist” intellectuals to behave any differently.
For an arbitrary example from our local subculture, Yudkowsky once wrote “A Reply to Francois Chollet” criticizing Chollet’s essay on the purported impossibility of an intelligence explosion. Did Yudkowsky first write an email to Chollet saying “did you mean X”? I don’t know, but I would guess not; if Chollet stands by the text he published, and Yudkowsky doesn’t feel uncertain about how to interpret the text, it’s not clear how either of their interests would be served by Yudkowsky sending an email first rather than just publishing the post.
As far as my own work goes, “Aiming for Convergence” and “‘Physicist Motors’” aren’t the first times I’ve written reaction posts to popular Less Wrong posts that I didn’t like. Previously, I wrote “Relevance Norms” in reaction to Chris Leong (following John Nerst) on contextualizing vs. decoupling norms, and “Firming Up Not-Lying Around Its Edge-Cases Is Less Broadly Useful Than One Might Initially Think” in reaction to Yudkowsky on meta-honesty.
I’ve also written other commentary posts that said some critical things about an article, without being so negative overall, such as “Comment on ‘Endogenous Epistemic Factionalization’” (reacting to an article by University of California–Irvine professors James Weatherall and Cailin O’Connor) and “Comment on ‘Propositions Concerning Digital Minds and Society’” (reacting to an article by Nick Bostrom and Carl Shulman).
I didn’t check with Leong beforehand. I didn’t check with Yudkowsky beforehand. I didn’t check with Weatherall or O’Connor or Bostrom or Shulman beforehand. No one told me I should have checked with Leong or Yudkowsky or Weatherall or O’Connor or Bostrom or Shulman beforehand. It’s just never been brought up as a problem or an offense before, ever.
Most of these authors are much more important people than me who are probably very busy. If someone had told me I should have checked with the authors beforehand, I think I would have said, “Wouldn’t that be disrespectful of their time?”
I do often notify the author after I’ve published a reaction piece. In the case of the current post, I unfortunately neglected to do so, but after seeing your comment, I did reach out to Rob, and he left a few comments. Notably, in response to my comment about my motivations for writing this post, Rob writes:
This would seem to be pretty strong counterevidence against the claim that I failed to employ the bare minimum of social grace (at least as that minimum is construed by Rob himself)?