Because others here are unlikely to do so, I feel like I ought to explicitly defend Hanania’s presence on the merits. I don’t find it “fun” that he’s “edgy.” I go out of my way, personally, to avoid being edgy. While I tread into heated territory at times, I have always made it my goal to do so respectfully, thoughtfully, and with consideration for others’ values. No, it’s not edginess or fun that makes me think he belongs there. He unquestionably belongs at a prediction market conference because he has been a passionate defender of prediction markets in the public sphere and because he writes to his predominantly right-leaning audience in ways that consistently emphasize and criticize the ways they depart from reality.
Let me be clear: I emphatically do not defend all parts of his approach and worldview. He often engages in a deliberately provocative way and says insensitive or offensive things about race, trans issues, and other hot-button topics on the right. But I feel the same about many people who you would have no problem seeing attend Manifest, and he brings specific unusual and worthwhile things to the table.
My first real interaction with Hanania, as I recall, came when he boosted and praised my affirmative defense of surrogacy, a topic very personal to me and one online public figures are much more likely to attack or stay silent on than defend when I speak about it. Later, I went on his podcast to discuss my path out of Mormonism and my sexuality, my essay on how the Republican Party is doomed, the importance of a spirited defense of liberalism in the public sphere, and other ideas that would challenge his right-leaning audience and encourage norms I believe the EA sphere would approve of. This is also true of some areas where I can’t claim to be as emphatically EA-aligned as he is, as with his treatise against factory farming and animal suffering.
Someone below pointed out that you misrepresented his pronouns/genocide essay, which I saw as an unusually self-reflective look at why he and others have, as he puts it, “deranged” priorities in getting the most animated not about objectively the most important ideas but about emotionally salient topics close to home. The point of the essay is not “they/them pronouns are worse than genocide,” but “it is in one sense deranged, but human and important to understand, that people get so much more emotionally invested in issues like they/them pronouns than about genocide.”
I understand perfectly well why people dislike him and I have no problem with robust criticism and even condemnation of much of what he says. But while his actions look from your angle like mainstreaming far-right ideas, they look to the far-right like mainstreaming animal suffering concerns, prediction markets, abortion and surrogacy, open borders, and rather a lot more. You may discount those as trivial, but the people in his audience certainly do not.
You seem smart, capable, and knowledgeable about prediction markets. I think Manifest would benefit from having you in attendance. But my own intellectual life is richer for the opportunity to read, engage with, and argue with people like Hanania. I’m glad he was there, I’m glad I had the chance to say hi to him and chat a bit, and if a precondition for your engagement is that it’s either you or him, I would rather you not attend than that you use your reputational sway to prevent me from having those interactions.
Because others here are unlikely to do so, I feel like I ought to explicitly defend Hanania’s presence on the merits. I don’t find it “fun” that he’s “edgy.” I go out of my way, personally, to avoid being edgy. While I tread into heated territory at times, I have always made it my goal to do so respectfully, thoughtfully, and with consideration for others’ values. No, it’s not edginess or fun that makes me think he belongs there. He unquestionably belongs at a prediction market conference because he has been a passionate defender of prediction markets in the public sphere and because he writes to his predominantly right-leaning audience in ways that consistently emphasize and criticize the ways they depart from reality.
Let me be clear: I emphatically do not defend all parts of his approach and worldview. He often engages in a deliberately provocative way and says insensitive or offensive things about race, trans issues, and other hot-button topics on the right. But I feel the same about many people who you would have no problem seeing attend Manifest, and he brings specific unusual and worthwhile things to the table.
My first real interaction with Hanania, as I recall, came when he boosted and praised my affirmative defense of surrogacy, a topic very personal to me and one online public figures are much more likely to attack or stay silent on than defend when I speak about it. Later, I went on his podcast to discuss my path out of Mormonism and my sexuality, my essay on how the Republican Party is doomed, the importance of a spirited defense of liberalism in the public sphere, and other ideas that would challenge his right-leaning audience and encourage norms I believe the EA sphere would approve of. This is also true of some areas where I can’t claim to be as emphatically EA-aligned as he is, as with his treatise against factory farming and animal suffering.
Someone below pointed out that you misrepresented his pronouns/genocide essay, which I saw as an unusually self-reflective look at why he and others have, as he puts it, “deranged” priorities in getting the most animated not about objectively the most important ideas but about emotionally salient topics close to home. The point of the essay is not “they/them pronouns are worse than genocide,” but “it is in one sense deranged, but human and important to understand, that people get so much more emotionally invested in issues like they/them pronouns than about genocide.”
I understand perfectly well why people dislike him and I have no problem with robust criticism and even condemnation of much of what he says. But while his actions look from your angle like mainstreaming far-right ideas, they look to the far-right like mainstreaming animal suffering concerns, prediction markets, abortion and surrogacy, open borders, and rather a lot more. You may discount those as trivial, but the people in his audience certainly do not.
You seem smart, capable, and knowledgeable about prediction markets. I think Manifest would benefit from having you in attendance. But my own intellectual life is richer for the opportunity to read, engage with, and argue with people like Hanania. I’m glad he was there, I’m glad I had the chance to say hi to him and chat a bit, and if a precondition for your engagement is that it’s either you or him, I would rather you not attend than that you use your reputational sway to prevent me from having those interactions.