IMO, our goal was to raise the sanity of particular smallish groups who attended workshops, but wasn’t very much to have effects on millions or billions (we would’ve been in favor of that, but most of us mostly didn’t think we had enough shot to try backchaining from that). Usually when people say “raise the sanity waterline” I interpret them as discussing stuff that happens to millions.
I agree the “tens of thousands” in the quoted passage is more than was attending workshops, and so pulls somewhat against my claim.
I do think our public statements were deceptive, in a fairly common but nevertheless bad way, in that we had many conflicting visions, tended to avoid contradicting people who thought we were gonna do all the good things that at least some of us had at least some desire/hope to do, and we tended in our public statements/fundraisers to try to avoid alienating all those hopes, as opposed to the higher-integrity / more honorable approach of trying to come to a coherent view of which priorities we prioritized how much and trying to help people not have unrealistic hopes in us, and not have inaccurate views of our priorities.
we tended in our public statements/fundraisers to try to avoid alienating all those hopes, as opposed to the higher-integrity / more honorable approach of trying to come to a coherent view of which priorities we prioritized how much and trying to help people not have unrealistic hopes in us, and not have inaccurate views of our priorities
I… wish to somewhat-defensively note, fwiw, that I do not believe this well-describes my own attempts to publicly communicate on behalf of CFAR. Speaking on behalf of orgs is difficult, and I make no claim to have fully succeeded at avoiding the cognitive bases/self-serving errors/etc. such things incentivize. But I certainly earnestly tried, to what I think was (even locally) an unusual degree, to avoid such dishonesty.
(I feel broadly skeptical the rest of the org’s communication is well-described in these terms either, including nearly all of yours Anna, but ofc I can speak most strongly about my own mind/behavior).
IMO, our goal was to raise the sanity of particular smallish groups who attended workshops, but wasn’t very much to have effects on millions or billions (we would’ve been in favor of that, but most of us mostly didn’t think we had enough shot to try backchaining from that). Usually when people say “raise the sanity waterline” I interpret them as discussing stuff that happens to millions.
I agree the “tens of thousands” in the quoted passage is more than was attending workshops, and so pulls somewhat against my claim.
I do think our public statements were deceptive, in a fairly common but nevertheless bad way, in that we had many conflicting visions, tended to avoid contradicting people who thought we were gonna do all the good things that at least some of us had at least some desire/hope to do, and we tended in our public statements/fundraisers to try to avoid alienating all those hopes, as opposed to the higher-integrity / more honorable approach of trying to come to a coherent view of which priorities we prioritized how much and trying to help people not have unrealistic hopes in us, and not have inaccurate views of our priorities.
I… wish to somewhat-defensively note, fwiw, that I do not believe this well-describes my own attempts to publicly communicate on behalf of CFAR. Speaking on behalf of orgs is difficult, and I make no claim to have fully succeeded at avoiding the cognitive bases/self-serving errors/etc. such things incentivize. But I certainly earnestly tried, to what I think was (even locally) an unusual degree, to avoid such dishonesty.
(I feel broadly skeptical the rest of the org’s communication is well-described in these terms either, including nearly all of yours Anna, but ofc I can speak most strongly about my own mind/behavior).