I’m interested in you expanding on which parts of the marketing were misleading
Mostly this part, I think:
In various follow-up discussions, I think Scott and others sometimes pointed to the length of all of the supplementary research as justification for taking the scenario seriously. I still think this mostly holds up but again I think it could be interpreted in the wrong way.
Like, yes, the supplementary materials definitely represent a huge amount of legitimate research that went into this. But the forecasts are “informed by” this research, rather than being directly derived from it, and the pointing-at kind of conveys the latter vibe.
I have been frustrated with previous forecasts for not communicating this well
Glad you get where I’m coming from; I wasn’t wholly sure how legitimate my complaints were.
One reason I’m hesitant to add [a disclaimer about non-obvious parameter choices] is that I think it might update non-rationalists too much toward thinking it’s useless, when in fact I think it’s pretty informative
I agree that this part is tricky, hence my being hesitant about fielding this critique at all. Persuasiveness isn’t something we should outright ignore, especially with something as high-profile as this. But also, the lack of such a disclaimer opens you up to takedowns such as titotal’s, and if one of those becomes high-profile (which it already might have?), that’d potentially hurt the persuasiveness more than a clear statement would have.
There’s presumably some sort of way to have your cake and eat it too here; to correctly communicate how the forecast was generated, but in terms that wouldn’t lead to it being dismissed by people at large.
I think “illustrative purposes only” would be too strong.
Yeah, sorry, I was being unnecessarily hyperbolic there.
Mostly this part, I think:
Like, yes, the supplementary materials definitely represent a huge amount of legitimate research that went into this. But the forecasts are “informed by” this research, rather than being directly derived from it, and the pointing-at kind of conveys the latter vibe.
Glad you get where I’m coming from; I wasn’t wholly sure how legitimate my complaints were.
I agree that this part is tricky, hence my being hesitant about fielding this critique at all. Persuasiveness isn’t something we should outright ignore, especially with something as high-profile as this. But also, the lack of such a disclaimer opens you up to takedowns such as titotal’s, and if one of those becomes high-profile (which it already might have?), that’d potentially hurt the persuasiveness more than a clear statement would have.
There’s presumably some sort of way to have your cake and eat it too here; to correctly communicate how the forecast was generated, but in terms that wouldn’t lead to it being dismissed by people at large.
Yeah, sorry, I was being unnecessarily hyperbolic there.