Right, and then you and Alice could get into the details.
But that’s just the thing—I wouldn’t be interested in getting into the details. My hypothetical response was meant to ward Alice off, not to engage with her. The subtext (which could be made into text, if need be—i.e., if Alice persists) is “I’m not an EA and won’t become an EA, so please take your sales pitch elsewhere”. The expected result is that Alice loses interest and goes off to find a likely-looking Bob.
I think this is roughly what Alice is trying to do with Bob (“here’s what I believe and why I believe it”) and Bob is trying to make the conversation not happen because it is about Bob.
The conversation as written doesn’t seem to me to support this reading. Alice steadfastly resists Bob’s attempts to turn the topic around to what she believes, her actions, etc., and instead relentlessly focuses on Bob’s beliefs, his alleged hypocrisy, etc.
But, like, my impression is that a lot of rationalist culture is about this sort of mutual flaw inspection, and there are fights between people who prefer that style and people who prefer a more ‘peace treaty’ style. I think that’s the same sort of conversation that’s happening here.
Well, for one thing, I’ll note that I’m not much of a fan of this “mutual flaw inspection”, either. The proper alternative, in my view, isn’t any sort of “peace treaty”, but rather a “person-interface” approach.
More importantly, though, any sort of “mutual flaw inspection” has got to be opted into. Otherwise you’re just accosting random people to berate them about their flaws. That’s not praiseworthy behavior.
On the contrary, if the label is accurate, then my condemnation extends to EA itself.
I think this part of EA makes it ‘sharp’ which is pretty ambivalent.
Sorry, I don’t think I get the meaning here. Could you rephrase?
If I’m reading you correctly, the main thing that’s going on here to condemn about Alice is that she’s doing some mixture of:
Setting herself as the judge of Bob without his consent or some external source of legitimacy
Being insufficiently clear about her complaints and judgments
Yes, basically this.
does Bob saying that he’s “interested in EA” or “really cares about improving the world” give Alice license to provide him with unsolicited (and, indeed, anti-solicited!) criticism?
The behavior I was referring to, specifically, is not rudeness (or else I’d have quoted Alice’s first comment, not her second one), but rather Alice taking as given the assumption that she has some sort of claim on Bob’s reasons for his actions—that Bob has some obligation to explain himself, to justify his actions and his reasons, to Alice. It is that assumption which must be firmly and implacably rejected at once.
Criticism, per se, is not the central issue (although anti-solicited criticism is almost always rude, if nothing else).
Sorry, I don’t think I get the meaning here. Could you rephrase?
I think EA is a mixture of ‘giving people new options’ (we found a cool new intervention!) and ‘removing previously held options’; it involves cutting to the heart of things, and also cutting things out of your life. The core beliefs do not involve much in the way of softness or malleability to individual autonomy. (I think people have since developed a bunch of padding so that they can live with it more easily.)
Like, EA is about deprioritizing ‘ineffective’ approaches in favor of ‘effective’ approaches. This is both rough (for the ineffective approaches and people excited about them) and also the mechanism of action by which EA does any good (in the same way that capitalism does well in part by having companies go out of business when they’re less good at deploying capital than others).
Hmm, I see. Well, I agree with your first paragraph but not with your second. That is, I do not think that selection of approaches is the core, to say nothing of the entirety, of what EA is. This is a major part of my problem with EA as a movement an ideology.
However, that is perhaps a digression we can avoid. More relevant is that none of this seems to me to require, or even to motivate, “being this sort of rude”. It’s all very well to “remove previously held options” and otherwise be “rough” to the beliefs and values of people who come to EA looking for guidance and answers, but to impose these things on people who manifestly aren’t interested is… not justifiable behavior, it seems to me.
(And, again, this is quite distinct from the question of accepting or rejecting someone from some group or what have you, or letting their false claims to have some praiseworthy quality stand unchallenged, etc.)
But that’s just the thing—I wouldn’t be interested in getting into the details. My hypothetical response was meant to ward Alice off, not to engage with her. The subtext (which could be made into text, if need be—i.e., if Alice persists) is “I’m not an EA and won’t become an EA, so please take your sales pitch elsewhere”. The expected result is that Alice loses interest and goes off to find a likely-looking Bob.
The conversation as written doesn’t seem to me to support this reading. Alice steadfastly resists Bob’s attempts to turn the topic around to what she believes, her actions, etc., and instead relentlessly focuses on Bob’s beliefs, his alleged hypocrisy, etc.
Well, for one thing, I’ll note that I’m not much of a fan of this “mutual flaw inspection”, either. The proper alternative, in my view, isn’t any sort of “peace treaty”, but rather a “person-interface” approach.
More importantly, though, any sort of “mutual flaw inspection” has got to be opted into. Otherwise you’re just accosting random people to berate them about their flaws. That’s not praiseworthy behavior.
Sorry, I don’t think I get the meaning here. Could you rephrase?
Yes, basically this.
Let me emphasize again what the problem is:
Criticism, per se, is not the central issue (although anti-solicited criticism is almost always rude, if nothing else).
I think EA is a mixture of ‘giving people new options’ (we found a cool new intervention!) and ‘removing previously held options’; it involves cutting to the heart of things, and also cutting things out of your life. The core beliefs do not involve much in the way of softness or malleability to individual autonomy. (I think people have since developed a bunch of padding so that they can live with it more easily.)
Like, EA is about deprioritizing ‘ineffective’ approaches in favor of ‘effective’ approaches. This is both rough (for the ineffective approaches and people excited about them) and also the mechanism of action by which EA does any good (in the same way that capitalism does well in part by having companies go out of business when they’re less good at deploying capital than others).
Hmm, I see. Well, I agree with your first paragraph but not with your second. That is, I do not think that selection of approaches is the core, to say nothing of the entirety, of what EA is. This is a major part of my problem with EA as a movement an ideology.
However, that is perhaps a digression we can avoid. More relevant is that none of this seems to me to require, or even to motivate, “being this sort of rude”. It’s all very well to “remove previously held options” and otherwise be “rough” to the beliefs and values of people who come to EA looking for guidance and answers, but to impose these things on people who manifestly aren’t interested is… not justifiable behavior, it seems to me.
(And, again, this is quite distinct from the question of accepting or rejecting someone from some group or what have you, or letting their false claims to have some praiseworthy quality stand unchallenged, etc.)
Just noting here that I broadly agree with Said’s position throughout this comment thread.