To be clear—the exact problem is that you are proposing excluding specific speakers (Hanania, Hsu, Hanson, the Collinses, etc) - who I find valuable to various degrees, not ideas. If Manifest issued a notice that it was not a venue to discuss IQ or heritability, that seems much more reasonable than excluding these thinkers.
(Why do Hanson and Hanania need to be speakers? They are the foremost advocates of prediction markets on the Right. Their support would be incredibly important in building a cross-party coalition).
(Why do Hanson and Hanania need to be speakers? They are the foremost advocates of prediction markets on the Right. Their support would be incredibly important in building a cross-party coalition).
This raises an interesting point—I think the objectionability of a speaker depends on part on the context of the broader event. For example, Hanania at an event with a bunch of prediction market/forecasting folks and without anyone linked to white nationalism, eugenics, etc. has a meaningfully different feel than Hanania with the lineup that was actually there. (I’m not expressing an opinion about whether I would find any particular speaker lineup to cross the line or not, only that I don’t think evaluating speakers individually without any context is the right mode of analysis.)
There is a difference, though, between “excluding” people who happen to buy a ticket and choosing not to recruit them, elevate them to the status of special guest, and use their attendance to advertise the event. Manifest did not, e.g., exclude holders of various problematic views by failing to recruit any of them or promote them to featured status. To justify this inaction, organizers did not need to first issue a notice that discussion of topics related to those problematic views at Manifest.
Also, my sense for Chau is that one of the top reasons he was invited was because he was up for doing a debate with Holly. I personally think one should extend something like “diplomatic immunity” to people from opposing communities if they are participating in a kind of diplomatic role. Facilitating any kind of high-bandwidth negotation between e/acc people and AI-x-risk concerned people seems quite valuable to me, and I e.g. think Manifest should probably invite Sam Altman to debate others on safety if he is up for it for similar reasons, despite me finding him otherwise quite despicable.
(I don’t have a strong take on Hanania. It seems pretty plausible to me based on things other people have said that he should be excluded, but I have learned to take things like that with a grain of salt without checking myself)
Just for the record, I actually invited Brian a few days before he launched AFTF; I proposed a debate afterwards. I would have enjoyed listening to his explanation of the e/acc position even outside a debate context; I think his past background as being solidly EA, eg organizing his university’s EA group, means that he has a unique perspective on this. (And he did end up giving a separate talk, which was very on theme for Manifest—“The Economics of Envy”.) So from my perspective it was less of a case of “diplomatic immunity” and more me genuinely wanting to hear from him.
I know that I, as a random nobody do not get to police who is EA, but I find myself really quite upset that we are attracting people who say the sort of stuff Chau is recorded saying here. Maybe that is an irrational reaction, and I should celebrate our ability to get people involved in doing good stuff even if they have bad views, which after all is the point. (On balance I think that is wrong, but I’m not being flat out sarcastic when I say it.) But I find these sort of attitudes straightforwardly bigoted.
I was under the impression that the original intent with Hanania at Manifest 2023 was a similar sort of diplomatic-relations thing: he was going to debate Destiny, but that debate was cancelled because of political pressure.
To be clear—the exact problem is that you are proposing excluding specific speakers (Hanania, Hsu, Hanson, the Collinses, etc) - who I find valuable to various degrees, not ideas. If Manifest issued a notice that it was not a venue to discuss IQ or heritability, that seems much more reasonable than excluding these thinkers.
(Why do Hanson and Hanania need to be speakers? They are the foremost advocates of prediction markets on the Right. Their support would be incredibly important in building a cross-party coalition).
I don’t think Hanania is exactly well-positioned to build support on the right; he constantly talks about how much contempt he has for conservatives.
I understand how it may be weird given how much he trolls them, but he is among the most influential writers on the Right.
I second that. He does a pretty good job of making all sides angry.
This raises an interesting point—I think the objectionability of a speaker depends on part on the context of the broader event. For example, Hanania at an event with a bunch of prediction market/forecasting folks and without anyone linked to white nationalism, eugenics, etc. has a meaningfully different feel than Hanania with the lineup that was actually there. (I’m not expressing an opinion about whether I would find any particular speaker lineup to cross the line or not, only that I don’t think evaluating speakers individually without any context is the right mode of analysis.)
There is a difference, though, between “excluding” people who happen to buy a ticket and choosing not to recruit them, elevate them to the status of special guest, and use their attendance to advertise the event. Manifest did not, e.g., exclude holders of various problematic views by failing to recruit any of them or promote them to featured status. To justify this inaction, organizers did not need to first issue a notice that discussion of topics related to those problematic views at Manifest.
To be clear I think I would personally only aim to exclude Hanania, Chau, and Yarvin.
Yarvin didn’t attend.
Also, my sense for Chau is that one of the top reasons he was invited was because he was up for doing a debate with Holly. I personally think one should extend something like “diplomatic immunity” to people from opposing communities if they are participating in a kind of diplomatic role. Facilitating any kind of high-bandwidth negotation between e/acc people and AI-x-risk concerned people seems quite valuable to me, and I e.g. think Manifest should probably invite Sam Altman to debate others on safety if he is up for it for similar reasons, despite me finding him otherwise quite despicable.
(I don’t have a strong take on Hanania. It seems pretty plausible to me based on things other people have said that he should be excluded, but I have learned to take things like that with a grain of salt without checking myself)
Just for the record, I actually invited Brian a few days before he launched AFTF; I proposed a debate afterwards. I would have enjoyed listening to his explanation of the e/acc position even outside a debate context; I think his past background as being solidly EA, eg organizing his university’s EA group, means that he has a unique perspective on this. (And he did end up giving a separate talk, which was very on theme for Manifest—“The Economics of Envy”.) So from my perspective it was less of a case of “diplomatic immunity” and more me genuinely wanting to hear from him.
Props for saying this when you didn’t have to.
I know that I, as a random nobody do not get to police who is EA, but I find myself really quite upset that we are attracting people who say the sort of stuff Chau is recorded saying here. Maybe that is an irrational reaction, and I should celebrate our ability to get people involved in doing good stuff even if they have bad views, which after all is the point. (On balance I think that is wrong, but I’m not being flat out sarcastic when I say it.) But I find these sort of attitudes straightforwardly bigoted.
https://www.transformernews.ai/p/alliance-for-the-future-director
Yeah though this seems more of an EA problem than a manifest one right? Like this kind of seems unrelated to the problem in hand?
I was under the impression that the original intent with Hanania at Manifest 2023 was a similar sort of diplomatic-relations thing: he was going to debate Destiny, but that debate was cancelled because of political pressure.
Damn. I would have loved to have seen that debate happen.
That people keep insinuating that Yarvin attended speaks to the issues with this whole discussion
I would take that deal if it were the difference between you coming and not.