I agree that private docs and group chats are totally fine and normal. The bit that concerns me is ‘discuss how to position themselves and how to hide their more controversial views or make them seem palatable’, which seems a problematic thing for leaders to be doing in private. (Just to reiterate I have zero evidence for or against this happening though.)
I think it’s good to discuss those topics internally at all, though I agree with you that EAs should generally stop hiding their controversial views (at least insofar as these are important for making decisions about EA-related topics), and I think we should be more cautious about optimizing for palatability (exactly because it can be hard to do this much without misleading people).
I agree that private docs and group chats are totally fine and normal. The bit that concerns me is ‘discuss how to position themselves and how to hide their more controversial views or make them seem palatable’, which seems a problematic thing for leaders to be doing in private. (Just to reiterate I have zero evidence for or against this happening though.)
I think it’s good to discuss those topics internally at all, though I agree with you that EAs should generally stop hiding their controversial views (at least insofar as these are important for making decisions about EA-related topics), and I think we should be more cautious about optimizing for palatability (exactly because it can be hard to do this much without misleading people).