EA - On missing moods and tradeoffs by Lizka

Link to original articleWelcome 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: On missing moods and tradeoffs, published by Lizka on May 9, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.My favorite jargony phrase of the ~week is "missing mood."How I've been using it:If you're not feeling sad about some tradeoffs/facts about the world (or if you notice that someone else doesn't seem to be), then you might not be tracking something important (you might be biased, etc.). The “missing mood” is a signal.Note: I’m sharing this short post with some thoughts to hear disagreements, get other examples, and add nuance to my understanding of what’s going on. I might not be able to respond to all comments.Examples1. Immigration restrictionsAn example from the linked essay: immigration restrictions are sometimes justified. But "the reasonable restrictionist mood is anguish that a tremendous opportunity to enrich mankind and end poverty must go to waste." You might think that restricting immigration is sometimes the lesser evil, but if you don't have this mood, you're probably just ~xenophobic.2. Long contentThe example from Ben — a simplified sketch of our conversation:Me: How seriously do you hold your belief that “more people should have short attention spans?” And that long content is bad?Ben: I think I mostly just mean that there’s a missing mood: it’s ok to create long content, but you should be sad that you’re failing to communicate those ideas more concisely. I don’t think people are. (And content consumers should signal that they’d prefer shorter content.)(Related: Distillation and research debt, apparently Ben had written a shortform about this a year ago, and Using the “executive summary” style: writing that respects your reader’s time)3-6. Selective spaces, transparency, cause prioritization, and slowing AII had been trying to (re)invent the phrase for situations like the following, where I want to see people acknowledging tradeoffs:Some spaces and events have restricted access. I think this is the right decision in many cases. But we should notice that it's sad to reject people from things, and there are negative effects from the fact that some people/groups can make those decisions.I want some groups of people to be more transparent and more widely accountable (and I frequently want to prioritize transparency-motivated projects on my team, and am sad when we drop them). In some cases, it's just true that I think transparency (or accountability) is more valuable than the other person does. But as I learn more about or start getting involved in any given situation, I usually notice that there are real tradeoffs; transparency has costs like time, risks, etc. There are two ways missing moods pop up in this case:When I'm just ~rallying for transparency, I'm missing a mood of "yes, it's costly in many ways, and it's awful that prioritizing transparency might mean that some good things don’t happen, but I still want more of it." If I don't have this mood, I might be biased by a vibe of "transparency good.” When I start thinking more about the tradeoffs, I sometimes entirely change my opinion to agree with the prioritization of whoever it is I’m disagreeing with. Alternatively, my position becomes closer to: "Ok, I don't really know what tradeoffs you're making, and you might be making the right ones. I'm sad that you don't seem to be valuing transparency that much. Or I just wish that you were transparent — I don't actually know how much you're valuing transparency."The people I’m disagreeing with might also be missing a mood. They might just not care about transparency or acknowledge its benefits. There’s a big difference (to me) between someone deciding not to prioritize transparency because the costs are too high and someone not valuing it at all, and if I’m not sensing the mood, it might be the latter. (This is especially true if I don’t h...