Yeah, I also read Anna as trying to create/strengthen local norms to the effect of ‘whistleblowers, truth-tellers, and people-saying-the-emperor-has-no-clothes are good community members and to-be-rewarded/protected’. That doesn’t make reprisals impossible, but I appreciated the push (as I interpreted it).
I also interpreted Anna as leading by example to some degree—a lot of orgs wouldn’t have their president join a public conversation like this, given the reputational risks. If I felt like Anna was taking on zero risk but was asking others to take on lots of risk, I may have felt differently.
Saying this publicly also (in my mind) creates some accountability for Anna to follow through. Community leaders who advocate value X and then go back on their word are in much more hot water than ones who quietly watch bad things happen.
E.g., suppose this were happening on the EA Forum. People might assume by default that CEA or whoever is opposed to candor about this topic, because they’re worried hashing things out in public could damage the EA-brand (or whatever). This creates a default pressure against open and honest truth-seeking. Jumping in to say ‘no, actually, having this conversation here is good, and it seems good to try to make it as real as we can’ can relieve a lot of that perceived pressure, even if it’s not a complete solution. I perceive Anna as trying to push in that direction on a bunch of recent threads (e.g., here).
I’m not sure what I think of Rohin’s interpretation. My initial gut feeling is that it’s asking too much social ownership of the micro, or asking community leaders to baby the community too much, or spend too much time carefully editing their comments to address all possible errors (with the inevitable result that community leaders say very little and the things they say are more dead and safe).
It’s not that I particularly object to the proposed rephrasings, more just that I have a gut-level sense that this is in a reference class of a thousand other similarly-small ways community leaders can accidentally slightly nudge folks in the wrong direction. In this particular case, I’d rather expect a little more from the community, rather than put this specific onus on Anna.
I agree there’s an empirical question of how socially risky it actually is to e.g. share negative stuff about Leverage in this thread. I’m all in favor of a thread to try to evaluate that question (which could also switch to PMs as needed if some people don’t feel safe participating), and I see the argument for trying to do that first, since resolving that could make it easier to discuss everything else. I just think people here are smart and independent enough to not be ‘coerced’ by Anna if she doesn’t open the conversation with a bunch of ‘you might suffer reprisals’ warnings (which does have a bit of a self-fulfilling-prophecy ring to it, though I think there are skillful ways to pull it off).
You’re reading too much into my response. I didn’t claim that Anna should have this extra onus. I made an incorrect inference, was confused, asked for clarification, was still confused by the first response (honestly I’m still confused by that response), understood after the second response, and then explained what I would have said if I were in her place when she asked about norms.
(Yes, I do in fact think that the specific thing said had negative consequences. Yes, this belief shows in my comments. But I didn’t say that Anna was wrong/bad for saying the specific thing, nor did I say that she “should” have done something else. Assuming for the moment that the specific statement did have negative consequences, what should I have done instead?)
(On the actual question, I mostly agree that we probably have too many demands on public communication, such that much less public communication happens than would be good.)
I just think people here are smart and independent enough to not be ‘coerced’ by Anna if she doesn’t open the conversation with a bunch of ‘you might suffer reprisals’ warnings
I also would have been fine with “I hope people share additional true, relevant facts”. The specific phrasing seemed bad because it seemed to me to imply that the fear of reprisal was wrong. See also here.
I read Anna’s request as an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s much easier to bully a few individuals than a large crowd.
Yeah, I also read Anna as trying to create/strengthen local norms to the effect of ‘whistleblowers, truth-tellers, and people-saying-the-emperor-has-no-clothes are good community members and to-be-rewarded/protected’. That doesn’t make reprisals impossible, but I appreciated the push (as I interpreted it).
I also interpreted Anna as leading by example to some degree—a lot of orgs wouldn’t have their president join a public conversation like this, given the reputational risks. If I felt like Anna was taking on zero risk but was asking others to take on lots of risk, I may have felt differently.
Saying this publicly also (in my mind) creates some accountability for Anna to follow through. Community leaders who advocate value X and then go back on their word are in much more hot water than ones who quietly watch bad things happen.
E.g., suppose this were happening on the EA Forum. People might assume by default that CEA or whoever is opposed to candor about this topic, because they’re worried hashing things out in public could damage the EA-brand (or whatever). This creates a default pressure against open and honest truth-seeking. Jumping in to say ‘no, actually, having this conversation here is good, and it seems good to try to make it as real as we can’ can relieve a lot of that perceived pressure, even if it’s not a complete solution. I perceive Anna as trying to push in that direction on a bunch of recent threads (e.g., here).
I’m not sure what I think of Rohin’s interpretation. My initial gut feeling is that it’s asking too much social ownership of the micro, or asking community leaders to baby the community too much, or spend too much time carefully editing their comments to address all possible errors (with the inevitable result that community leaders say very little and the things they say are more dead and safe).
It’s not that I particularly object to the proposed rephrasings, more just that I have a gut-level sense that this is in a reference class of a thousand other similarly-small ways community leaders can accidentally slightly nudge folks in the wrong direction. In this particular case, I’d rather expect a little more from the community, rather than put this specific onus on Anna.
I agree there’s an empirical question of how socially risky it actually is to e.g. share negative stuff about Leverage in this thread. I’m all in favor of a thread to try to evaluate that question (which could also switch to PMs as needed if some people don’t feel safe participating), and I see the argument for trying to do that first, since resolving that could make it easier to discuss everything else. I just think people here are smart and independent enough to not be ‘coerced’ by Anna if she doesn’t open the conversation with a bunch of ‘you might suffer reprisals’ warnings (which does have a bit of a self-fulfilling-prophecy ring to it, though I think there are skillful ways to pull it off).
You’re reading too much into my response. I didn’t claim that Anna should have this extra onus. I made an incorrect inference, was confused, asked for clarification, was still confused by the first response (honestly I’m still confused by that response), understood after the second response, and then explained what I would have said if I were in her place when she asked about norms.
(Yes, I do in fact think that the specific thing said had negative consequences. Yes, this belief shows in my comments. But I didn’t say that Anna was wrong/bad for saying the specific thing, nor did I say that she “should” have done something else. Assuming for the moment that the specific statement did have negative consequences, what should I have done instead?)
(On the actual question, I mostly agree that we probably have too many demands on public communication, such that much less public communication happens than would be good.)
I also would have been fine with “I hope people share additional true, relevant facts”. The specific phrasing seemed bad because it seemed to me to imply that the fear of reprisal was wrong. See also here.
OK, thanks for the correction! :]