Why opine on massive communities?

According to a recent post on LessWrong by Katja Grace, people routinely make sweeping generalizations about massive communities—including AI safety, rationalist, and effective altruist spaces—despite knowing only small corners of them. Grace, who's been involved since two thousand eight, notes that even insiders feel qualified to opine broadly, overlooking just how large and diverse these communities have become. It's a pattern she compares to how people critique entire cities like Berkeley rather than specific neighborhoods. Why do we generalize about the whole when we've only experienced fragments?

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