Yes, this is true, and also implies that the rationality community should be replaced with something very different, according to its stated goals. (Did you think I didn’t think that?)
I don’t think you didn’t think that. My question was to challenge you to answer why you, and the others if you would feel comfortable speaking to their perspectives, focus so much of your attention on EA instead of the rationality community (or other communities perhaps presenting the same kind and degree of problems), if you indeed understand they share similar problems, and posing similarly high stakes (e.g., failure modes of x-risk reduction).
I asked because it’s frustrating to me how inconsistent with your own efforts here to put way more pressure on EA than rationality. I’m guessing part of the reason for your trepidation in the rationality community is because you feel a sense of how much disruption it could cause, and how much risk nothing would change either. The same thing has happened when, not so much you, but some of your friends have criticized EA in the past. I was thinking it was because you are socially closer to the rationality community that you wouldn’t be as willing to criticize them.
I am not as invested in the rationality as a community as I was in the past. So, while I feel some personal responsibility to seek to analyze the intellectual failure modes of rationality, I don’t feel much of a moral urge anymore for correcting its social failure modes. So, I lack motivation to think through if it would be “good” or not for you to do it, though.
I think I actually do much more criticism of the rationality community than the EA community nowadays, although that might be invisible to you since most of it is private. (Anyway, I don’t do that much public criticism of EA either, so this seems like a strange complaint about me regardless)
Well, this was a question more about your past activity than the present activity, and also the greater activity of the same kind of some people you seem to know well, but I thought I would take the opportunity to ask you about it now. At any rate, thanks for taking the time to humour me.
My question was to challenge you to answer why you, and the others if you would feel comfortable speaking to their perspectives, focus so much of your attention on EA instead of the rationality community (or other communities perhaps presenting the same kind and degree of problems), if you indeed understand they share similar problems, and posing similarly high stakes (e.g., failure modes of x-risk reduction).
It doesn’t seem to me like anyone I interact with is still honestly confused about whether and to what extent e.g. CFAR can teach rationality, or rationality provides the promised superpowers. Whereas some people still believe a few core EA claims (like the one the OP criticizes) which I think are pretty implausible if you just look at them in conjunction and ask yourself what else would have to be true.
If you or anyone else want to motivate me to criticize the Rationality movement more, pointing me at people who continue to labor under the impression that the initial promises were achievable is likely to work; rude and condescending “advice” about how the generic reader (but not any particular person) is likely to feel the wrong way about my posts on EA is not likely to work.
I don’t think you didn’t think that. My question was to challenge you to answer why you, and the others if you would feel comfortable speaking to their perspectives, focus so much of your attention on EA instead of the rationality community (or other communities perhaps presenting the same kind and degree of problems), if you indeed understand they share similar problems, and posing similarly high stakes (e.g., failure modes of x-risk reduction).
I asked because it’s frustrating to me how inconsistent with your own efforts here to put way more pressure on EA than rationality. I’m guessing part of the reason for your trepidation in the rationality community is because you feel a sense of how much disruption it could cause, and how much risk nothing would change either. The same thing has happened when, not so much you, but some of your friends have criticized EA in the past. I was thinking it was because you are socially closer to the rationality community that you wouldn’t be as willing to criticize them.
I am not as invested in the rationality as a community as I was in the past. So, while I feel some personal responsibility to seek to analyze the intellectual failure modes of rationality, I don’t feel much of a moral urge anymore for correcting its social failure modes. So, I lack motivation to think through if it would be “good” or not for you to do it, though.
I think I actually do much more criticism of the rationality community than the EA community nowadays, although that might be invisible to you since most of it is private. (Anyway, I don’t do that much public criticism of EA either, so this seems like a strange complaint about me regardless)
Well, this was a question more about your past activity than the present activity, and also the greater activity of the same kind of some people you seem to know well, but I thought I would take the opportunity to ask you about it now. At any rate, thanks for taking the time to humour me.
It doesn’t seem to me like anyone I interact with is still honestly confused about whether and to what extent e.g. CFAR can teach rationality, or rationality provides the promised superpowers. Whereas some people still believe a few core EA claims (like the one the OP criticizes) which I think are pretty implausible if you just look at them in conjunction and ask yourself what else would have to be true.
If you or anyone else want to motivate me to criticize the Rationality movement more, pointing me at people who continue to labor under the impression that the initial promises were achievable is likely to work; rude and condescending “advice” about how the generic reader (but not any particular person) is likely to feel the wrong way about my posts on EA is not likely to work.