There is a lot going on in the dynamics of this situation that relates to and threatens virtues and ideals that I value and---at least on lesswrong where it is usually safe to do so---hold sacred. If I wanted to protect those ideals effectively I would of course have to go ahead and write my own post but for me writing eloquent posts takes a lot of time and initiative.
I would like to better understand why you and others are reacting so strongly to both Todd's post and JGWeissman's. I think I may have said this before, but I really wish you'd write more posts relative to comments so you can explain your ideas more systematically.
The misleading usage of out of context quotes. I tend to recall all those who use this particular interpersonal tactic, whether against myself or others. Call it a pet peeve.
Have you considered that they may not be deliberately quoting you misleadingly, but genuinely misunderstood your comments? In other words communicating is hard (inferential distance, etc) and it may be partly your fault that you're being misleadingly quoted so often? I think I've very rarely if ever been misleadingly quoted out of context, and attribute that at least in part to wording my comments and posts very carefully and often providing caveats against possible misunderstandings.
Less Wrong was created to produce rationalists, so that many causes could benefit from the efforts of those rationalists. The point is not just to have nice place to talk about rationality, but to really make ourselves stronger, to apply the lessons that we learn here to improve our own lives, and to improve the world.
80,000 Hours is an organization created to provide direct domain specific help to people who want to support charitable causes, the same causes Less Wrong is supposed to produce rationalists to support. 80,000 Hours has goals clearly aligned with ours. Provided we think they are pursuing their aligned goals effectively, we should be excited about this. We should be happy when they reach out to us, to see how we can work together.
So, I am very disappointed to see the negative reception of a Less Wrong post by 80,000 Hours member Benjamin Todd, asking us what questions we would like 80,000 Hours to answer for us. They are basically offering to do free research for us on things that we care about, because our goals are aligned. And yet, as of this writing, that post has a score of -7, and it has received comments complaining that it is an ad. To be clear, ads of the sort that we want to avoid do not offer free services relevant to a core purpose of our community. I won't argue whether or not the post was an ad, but I will say that it belongs on Less Wrong and we should give it a good reception.
I would like to thank Benjamin Todd and others at 80,000 hours for their work in helping people be more effective philanthropists and otherwise support important causes, and for engaging Less Wrong in this project. I also thank everyone who responded to post with their actual questions about making a difference.
And, please, can we be nice to people who help us?