That said, I think such discussions are very important. If there are bad things happening in the EA community, it is better if we can detect and fix them. Because the possible alternatives include a huge scandal later in media, or EA becoming something different than what we wanted it to be. If you believe that EA could dramatically improve the world, then corrupting EA could dramatically worsen it.
Sometimes the alternative to “drama” is the “missing stair”.
The technical details are not important for most of us, only the general pattern is. It would be more effective if only Ben checked them and told us the summary (which he did). But when Ben is accused of doing this unfairly, I suppose other people needs to check the details, too. Not everyone needs to, I agree.
I agree that it is important to detect and fix bad things that happen in the community.
I think though that such situations can be handled by a handful of leaders/moderators as opposed to thousands and thousands of people who visit LessWrong. It sounds like you agree with this.
Relatedly, we agree that we can’t rely on few people having this power without having some sort of checks on that power.
I also think that it has a net negative impact for most non leaders/moderators to invest more than a few minutes into this. I’m not clear on whether or not you agree with this, but I’d bet that you agree.
I agree about the “drama” potential.
That said, I think such discussions are very important. If there are bad things happening in the EA community, it is better if we can detect and fix them. Because the possible alternatives include a huge scandal later in media, or EA becoming something different than what we wanted it to be. If you believe that EA could dramatically improve the world, then corrupting EA could dramatically worsen it.
Sometimes the alternative to “drama” is the “missing stair”.
The technical details are not important for most of us, only the general pattern is. It would be more effective if only Ben checked them and told us the summary (which he did). But when Ben is accused of doing this unfairly, I suppose other people needs to check the details, too. Not everyone needs to, I agree.
I suspect that we don’t disagree.
I agree that it is important to detect and fix bad things that happen in the community.
I think though that such situations can be handled by a handful of leaders/moderators as opposed to thousands and thousands of people who visit LessWrong. It sounds like you agree with this.
Relatedly, we agree that we can’t rely on few people having this power without having some sort of checks on that power.
I also think that it has a net negative impact for most non leaders/moderators to invest more than a few minutes into this. I’m not clear on whether or not you agree with this, but I’d bet that you agree.