My impression of the lesson from the Shanghai Communique is not “parties should only ever say things everyone else will agree with them on” but rather “when talking to broad audiences, say what you believe; when attempting to collaborate with potential partners, build as much collaboration as you can on areas of agreement.”
I don’t have much interest in trying to speak for everyone, as opposed to just for myself. Weakening the title seems to me like it only makes sense in a world where I’m trying to represent some sort of intersectional view that most everyone agrees upon, instead of just calling it like I see it. I think the world would be better off if we all just presented our own direct views. I don’t think this is in tension with the idea that one should attempt to build as much collaboration as possible in areas of agreement.
For instance: if you present your views to an audience and I have an opportunity to comment, I would encourage you to present your own direct views (rather than something altered in attempts to make it palatable to me). Completely separately, if I were to comment on it, I think it’d be cool of me to emphasize the most important and relevant bits first (which, for most audiences, will be bits of agreement) before moving on to higher-orsee disagreements. (If you see me failing to do this, I’d appreciate being called out.)
(All that said, I acknowledge that the book would’ve looked very different—and that the writing process would have been very different—if we were trying to build a Coallition of the Concerned and speak for all EAs and LessWrongers, rather than trying to just blurt out the situation as we saw it ourselves. I think “I was not part of the drafting process and I disagree with a bunch of the specifics” is a fine reason to avoid socially rallying behind the book. My understanding of the OP is that it’s trying to push for something less like “falsely tell the world that the book represents you, because it’s close enough” (which I think would be bad), and more like “when you’re interacting with a counterparty that has a lot of relevant key areas of agreement (opening China would make it richer / the AI race is reckless), it’s productive to build as much as you can on areas of agreement”. And fwiw, for my part, I’m very happy to form coalitions with all those who think the race is insanely reckless and would be better off stopped, even if we don’t see eye to eye on the likelihood of alignment success.)
On reflection I think you’re right that this post isn’t doing the thing I thought it was doing, and have edited my comment.
(For reference: I don’t actually have strong takes on whether you should have chosen a different title given your beliefs. I agree that your strategy seems like a reasonable one given those beliefs, while also thinking that building a Coalition of the Concerned would have been a reasonable strategy given those beliefs. I mostly dislike the social pressure currently being applied in the direction of “those who disagree should stick to their agreements” (example) without even an acknowledgement of the asymmetricity of the request, let alone a justification for it. But I agree this post isn’t quite doing that.)
(Fwiw, I personally disclaim any social pressure that people should avoid mentioning or discussing their disagreements; that’d be silly. I am in favor of building upon areas of agreement, and I am in favor of being careful to avoid misleading the public, and I am in favor of people who disagree managing to build coalitions, but I’m not in favor of people feeling like it’s time to stfu. I think the “misleading the public” thing is a little delicate, because I think it’s easy for onlookers to think experts are saying “i disagree [that the current situation is reckless and crazy and a sane world would put a stop to it]” when in fact experts are trying to say “i disagree [about whether certain technical plans have a middling probability of success, though of course i agree that the current situation is reckless and crazy]”, and it can be a bit tricky to grumble about this effect in a fashion that doesn’t come across as telling people to stfu about their disagreements. My attempt to thread that needle is to remind people that this misunderstanding is common and important, and thus to suggest that when people have a broad audience, they work to combat this misread :-))
ty! yeah. tbc i would also not endorse “falsely tell the world that the book represents you, because it’s close enough” but i do think when parties have ~some reason to want to be cooperative, it is productive to build on areas of agreement, and i felt that has been missin
My impression of the lesson from the Shanghai Communique is not “parties should only ever say things everyone else will agree with them on” but rather “when talking to broad audiences, say what you believe; when attempting to collaborate with potential partners, build as much collaboration as you can on areas of agreement.”
I don’t have much interest in trying to speak for everyone, as opposed to just for myself. Weakening the title seems to me like it only makes sense in a world where I’m trying to represent some sort of intersectional view that most everyone agrees upon, instead of just calling it like I see it. I think the world would be better off if we all just presented our own direct views. I don’t think this is in tension with the idea that one should attempt to build as much collaboration as possible in areas of agreement.
For instance: if you present your views to an audience and I have an opportunity to comment, I would encourage you to present your own direct views (rather than something altered in attempts to make it palatable to me). Completely separately, if I were to comment on it, I think it’d be cool of me to emphasize the most important and relevant bits first (which, for most audiences, will be bits of agreement) before moving on to higher-orsee disagreements. (If you see me failing to do this, I’d appreciate being called out.)
(All that said, I acknowledge that the book would’ve looked very different—and that the writing process would have been very different—if we were trying to build a Coallition of the Concerned and speak for all EAs and LessWrongers, rather than trying to just blurt out the situation as we saw it ourselves. I think “I was not part of the drafting process and I disagree with a bunch of the specifics” is a fine reason to avoid socially rallying behind the book. My understanding of the OP is that it’s trying to push for something less like “falsely tell the world that the book represents you, because it’s close enough” (which I think would be bad), and more like “when you’re interacting with a counterparty that has a lot of relevant key areas of agreement (opening China would make it richer / the AI race is reckless), it’s productive to build as much as you can on areas of agreement”. And fwiw, for my part, I’m very happy to form coalitions with all those who think the race is insanely reckless and would be better off stopped, even if we don’t see eye to eye on the likelihood of alignment success.)
On reflection I think you’re right that this post isn’t doing the thing I thought it was doing, and have edited my comment.
(For reference: I don’t actually have strong takes on whether you should have chosen a different title given your beliefs. I agree that your strategy seems like a reasonable one given those beliefs, while also thinking that building a Coalition of the Concerned would have been a reasonable strategy given those beliefs. I mostly dislike the social pressure currently being applied in the direction of “those who disagree should stick to their agreements” (example) without even an acknowledgement of the asymmetricity of the request, let alone a justification for it. But I agree this post isn’t quite doing that.)
(Fwiw, I personally disclaim any social pressure that people should avoid mentioning or discussing their disagreements; that’d be silly. I am in favor of building upon areas of agreement, and I am in favor of being careful to avoid misleading the public, and I am in favor of people who disagree managing to build coalitions, but I’m not in favor of people feeling like it’s time to stfu. I think the “misleading the public” thing is a little delicate, because I think it’s easy for onlookers to think experts are saying “i disagree [that the current situation is reckless and crazy and a sane world would put a stop to it]” when in fact experts are trying to say “i disagree [about whether certain technical plans have a middling probability of success, though of course i agree that the current situation is reckless and crazy]”, and it can be a bit tricky to grumble about this effect in a fashion that doesn’t come across as telling people to stfu about their disagreements. My attempt to thread that needle is to remind people that this misunderstanding is common and important, and thus to suggest that when people have a broad audience, they work to combat this misread :-))
I also disclaim this social pressure! Seems pretty bad IMO (and I have commented myself on the linked tweet thread saying so)
ty! yeah. tbc i would also not endorse “falsely tell the world that the book represents you, because it’s close enough” but i do think when parties have ~some reason to want to be cooperative, it is productive to build on areas of agreement, and i felt that has been missin