EA - Notes on how I want to handle criticism by Lizka

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Notes on how I want to handle criticism, published by Lizka on June 8, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Tl;dr/epistemic status: quick post mostly comprised of bullet points.I have a pretty public-facing role, so I get a fair amount of feedback (both negative and positive) on my work from different people. A while back, I wrote a doc for myself on how I want to respond to this kind of negative feedback (and related stuff). Then I shared the doc with some folks I know and work with to get input on it, then never shared it further. There’s been more related discussion recently, so I thought I’d share it now. I haven’t really updated it except to add the introductory notes (before the first actual section), some links, and a picture.Sections:Notes on criticismHow I want to handle criticismWhat I want to do to shift towards handling criticism betterBonus: notes on how to share criticism in ways that make this process easier for the one being criticizedI use the word “criticism” here for a pretty vague/broad class of things that includes things like “negative feedback” and “people sharing that they think I’m wrong in some important way.” (Other things are also arguably “criticism,” like people pointing out specific minor errors, but those are easier for me to handle, so I wasn’t really focusing on them when I wrote this.)Please don't interpret this as a request to stop sharing feedback! Feedback has often helped me improve my work and grow. (I do think there are better and worse ways of sharing feedback, though — see more below.)Notes on criticismThese were kind of used like lemmas for the original doc — claims to help arrive at my ~conclusionsWhat’s the point of (engaging with) criticism?To improve what I’m working on nowTo learn something I might be able to use in the future[Something about supporting communal norms around engaging with good-faith criticism.]Sometimes criticism isn’t really criticism and shouldn’t be (it could be reframed as a suggestion)Criticism can be wrong(Fear of) criticism can discourage action in bad waysHow I want to handle criticismSteelman it before updating on it, or try to understand the other person’s point of view if I first want to respond to it.Consider it rationally, and avoid over-updating on it. (Criticism can be wrong!)Actually listen to it, and stare into the abyss if the criticism is potentially scary.Welcome it and be grateful for it, and avoid pre-emptively guarding against it by being vague.Acknowledge explicitly (to myself and ideally to the person criticizing me) where I was wrong, if I was.Avoid feeling like I need to justify everything to everyone, especially when this is taking time or energy.Avoid letting fear of criticism stop me from doing things I endorse doing.Interpret it in a productive way — what should I learn, how should I change my behavior (if at all) — and avoid immediately judging myself, worrying that it means that I’m terrible in some deep important way. (Related: "Flinching away from truth” is often about protecting the epistemology.)Relatedly, avoid over-interpreting: avoid thinking that whoever is passing this on must think that I’m terrible in many other ways.If it’s very aggressive, get some help dealing with it.Allow myself to engage with it in healthy ways, e.g. don’t go head-first into the criticism out of a misguided impulse towards ~epistemic bravado.Sometimes I’m emotionally overwhelmed. It’s ok to listen to and process the criticism later. If someone is giving me feedback, I can ask them to write it down and send it a little later. If I have an email, I can snooze it until next week. A method that a friend proposed but that I’ve never tried is asking a friend to read the criticism and to contextualize it for me. (I assume the process is something like “this is pr...