I agree with you that EA shouldn’t be prevented from adopting effective positions just because of a perception of partisanship. However, there’s a nontrivial cost to doing so: the encouragement of political sameness within EA, and the discouragement of individuals or policymakers with political differences from joining EA or supporting EA objectives.
This cost, if realized, could fall against many of this post’s objectives:
We must temper our knee-jerk reactions against deep critiques, and be curious about our emotional reactions to arguments – “Why does this person disagree with me? Why am I so instinctively dismissive about what they have to say?”
We must be willing to accept the possibility that “big” things may need to be fixed and that some of our closely-held beliefs are misguided
EAs should make a point of engaging with and listening to EAs from underrepresented disciplines and backgrounds, as well as those with heterodox/“heretical” views
EAs should consider how our shared modes of thought may subconsciously affect our views of the world – what blindspots and biases might we have created for ourselves?
EA institutions should select for diversity
Along lines of:
Philosophical and political beliefs
It also plausibly increases x-risk. If EA becomes known as an effectiveness-oriented wing of a particular political party, the perception of EA policies as partisan could embolden strong resistance from the other political party. Imagine how much progress we could have had on climate change if it wasn’t a partisan issue. Now imagine it’s 2040, the political party EA affiliates with is urgently pleading for AI safety legislation and a framework for working with China on reducing x-risk, and the other party stands firmly opposed because “these out-of-touch elitist San Francisco liberals think the world’s gonna end, and want to collaborate with the Chinese!”
I agree that EA should be accepting of a wide range of political opinions (although highly extreme and hateful views should still be shunned).
I don’t think the suggestions there are necessarily at odds with that, though. For example, increasing demographic diversity is probably going to increase political diversity as well, because people from extremely similar backgrounds have fairly similar politics. If you expand to people from rural background, you’re more likely to get a country conservative, if you encourage more women, you’re more likely to get feminists, if you encourage people from Ghana, you’ll get whole new political ideologies nobody at silicon valley has even heard of. The politics of nerdy white men like me represent a very tiny fraction of the overall political beliefs that exist in the world.
When it comes to extreme views it’s worth noting that what’s extreme depends a lot of the context.
A view like “homosexuality should be criminalized” is extreme in Silicon Valley but not in Uganda where it’s a mainstream political opinion. In my time as a forum moderator, I had to deal with a user from Uganda voicing those views and in cases, like that you have to make choice about how inclusive you want to be of people expressing very different political ideologies.
In many cases, where the political views of people in Ghana or Uganda substantially differ from those common in the US they are going to be perceived as highly extreme.
You might find people who are from Ghana and who adopted woke values, but those aren’t giving you deep diversity in political viewpoints.
For all the talk about decolonization, Silicon Valley liberals seem always very eager when it comes to denying people from Ghana or Uganda to express mainstream political opinions from their home countries.
While on it’s face, increasing demographic diversity seems like it would result in an increase in political diversity, I don’t think that is actually true.
This rests on several assumptions:
I am looking through the lens of U.S. domestic politics, and identifying political diversity by having representation of America’s two largest political parties.
Increases in diversity will not be evenly distributed across the American population. (White Evangelicals are not being targeted in a diversity push, and we would expect the addition of college grad+ women and BIPOC.)
Of all demographic groups, white college grad+ men, “Sams,” are the most politically diverse group, at 48 D, 46R. By contrast, the groups typically understood to be represented by increased diversity:
College Grad+ Women: 65 D, 30R
There is difficulty in a lack of BIPOC breakdown by education level, but assuming that trends of increased education would result in a greater democratic disparity, these are useful lower bounds:
Black: 83 D, 10R
Hispanic: 63 D, 29 R
Asian American: 72 D, 17R
While I would caution against partisanship in the evaluation of ideas and programs, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in a movement having a partisan lean to its membership. A climate change activist group can work in a non-partisan manner, but the logical consequence of their membership will be primarily Democratic voters, because that party appeals to their important issue.
if you encourage people from Ghana, you’ll get whole new political ideologies nobody at silicon valley has even heard of.
I think this aspect of diversity would offer real value in terms of political diversity, and could potentially add value to EA. I think clarification on what it means to “increase diversity” are required to assess the utility. I am biased by my experience in which organizations become more “diverse” in skin color, while becoming more culturally and politically homogenous.
Reducing “political diversity” down to the 2 bit question of “which american political party do they vote for” is a gross simplification. For example, while black people are more likely to vote democrat, a black democrat is half as likely as a white democrat to identify as “liberal”. This is because there are multiple political axes, and multiple political issues to consider, starting with the standard economic vs social political compass model.
This definitely becomes clearest when we escape from a narrow focus on elite college graduates in the US, and look at people from different nations entirely. You will have an easier time finding a Maoist in china than in texas, for example. They might vote D in the US as a result of perceiving the party as less anti-immigrant, but they’re not the same as a white D voter from the suburbs.
As for your experiences where political and ethnic diversity were anti-correlated: did the organisation make any effort on other aspects of diversity, other than skin colour, or did they just, say, swap out a couple of MIT grads of one race for a couple of MIT grads of a different race? Given that you say the culture didn’t change either, the latter seems likely.
I agree with you that many of the broad suggestions can be read that way. However, when the post suggests which concrete groups EA should target for the sake of philosophical and political diversity, they all seem to line up on one particular side of the aisle:
EAs should increase their awareness of their own positionality and subjectivity, and pay far more attention to e.g. postcolonial critiques of western academia
What politics are postcolonial critics of Western academia likely to have?
EAs should study other ways of knowing, taking inspiration from a range of academic and professional communities as well as indigenous worldviews
EA institutions and community-builders should promote diversity and inclusion more, including funding projects targeted at traditionally underrepresented groups
When the term “traditionally underrepresented groups” is used, does it typically refer to rural conservatives, or to other groups? What politics are these other groups likely to have?
As you pointed out, this post’s suggestions could be read as encouraging universal diversity, and I agree that the authors would likely endorse your explanation of the consequences of that. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that this post is coded with a political lean, and that many of the post’s suggestions can be reasonably read as nudging EA towards that lean.
I agree with you that EA shouldn’t be prevented from adopting effective positions just because of a perception of partisanship. However, there’s a nontrivial cost to doing so: the encouragement of political sameness within EA, and the discouragement of individuals or policymakers with political differences from joining EA or supporting EA objectives.
This cost, if realized, could fall against many of this post’s objectives:
We must temper our knee-jerk reactions against deep critiques, and be curious about our emotional reactions to arguments – “Why does this person disagree with me? Why am I so instinctively dismissive about what they have to say?”
We must be willing to accept the possibility that “big” things may need to be fixed and that some of our closely-held beliefs are misguided
EAs should make a point of engaging with and listening to EAs from underrepresented disciplines and backgrounds, as well as those with heterodox/“heretical” views
EAs should consider how our shared modes of thought may subconsciously affect our views of the world – what blindspots and biases might we have created for ourselves?
EA institutions should select for diversity
Along lines of:
Philosophical and political beliefs
It also plausibly increases x-risk. If EA becomes known as an effectiveness-oriented wing of a particular political party, the perception of EA policies as partisan could embolden strong resistance from the other political party. Imagine how much progress we could have had on climate change if it wasn’t a partisan issue. Now imagine it’s 2040, the political party EA affiliates with is urgently pleading for AI safety legislation and a framework for working with China on reducing x-risk, and the other party stands firmly opposed because “these out-of-touch elitist San Francisco liberals think the world’s gonna end, and want to collaborate with the Chinese!”
I agree that EA should be accepting of a wide range of political opinions (although highly extreme and hateful views should still be shunned).
I don’t think the suggestions there are necessarily at odds with that, though. For example, increasing demographic diversity is probably going to increase political diversity as well, because people from extremely similar backgrounds have fairly similar politics. If you expand to people from rural background, you’re more likely to get a country conservative, if you encourage more women, you’re more likely to get feminists, if you encourage people from Ghana, you’ll get whole new political ideologies nobody at silicon valley has even heard of. The politics of nerdy white men like me represent a very tiny fraction of the overall political beliefs that exist in the world.
When it comes to extreme views it’s worth noting that what’s extreme depends a lot of the context.
A view like “homosexuality should be criminalized” is extreme in Silicon Valley but not in Uganda where it’s a mainstream political opinion. In my time as a forum moderator, I had to deal with a user from Uganda voicing those views and in cases, like that you have to make choice about how inclusive you want to be of people expressing very different political ideologies.
In many cases, where the political views of people in Ghana or Uganda substantially differ from those common in the US they are going to be perceived as highly extreme.
The idea, that you can be accepting of political ideologies of a place like Ghana where the political discussion is about “Yes, we already have forbidden homosexuality but the punishment seems to low to discourage that behavior” vs. “The current laws against homosexuality are enough” while at the same time shunning highly extreme views, seems to me very unrealistic.
You might find people who are from Ghana and who adopted woke values, but those aren’t giving you deep diversity in political viewpoints.
For all the talk about decolonization, Silicon Valley liberals seem always very eager when it comes to denying people from Ghana or Uganda to express mainstream political opinions from their home countries.
While on it’s face, increasing demographic diversity seems like it would result in an increase in political diversity, I don’t think that is actually true.
This rests on several assumptions:
I am looking through the lens of U.S. domestic politics, and identifying political diversity by having representation of America’s two largest political parties.
Increases in diversity will not be evenly distributed across the American population. (White Evangelicals are not being targeted in a diversity push, and we would expect the addition of college grad+ women and BIPOC.)
Of all demographic groups, white college grad+ men, “Sams,” are the most politically diverse group, at 48 D, 46R. By contrast, the groups typically understood to be represented by increased diversity:
College Grad+ Women: 65 D, 30R
There is difficulty in a lack of BIPOC breakdown by education level, but assuming that trends of increased education would result in a greater democratic disparity, these are useful lower bounds:
Black: 83 D, 10R
Hispanic: 63 D, 29 R
Asian American: 72 D, 17R
While I would caution against partisanship in the evaluation of ideas and programs, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in a movement having a partisan lean to its membership. A climate change activist group can work in a non-partisan manner, but the logical consequence of their membership will be primarily Democratic voters, because that party appeals to their important issue.
I think this aspect of diversity would offer real value in terms of political diversity, and could potentially add value to EA. I think clarification on what it means to “increase diversity” are required to assess the utility. I am biased by my experience in which organizations become more “diverse” in skin color, while becoming more culturally and politically homogenous.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/06/02/democratic-edge-in-party-identification-narrows-slightly/
Reducing “political diversity” down to the 2 bit question of “which american political party do they vote for” is a gross simplification. For example, while black people are more likely to vote democrat, a black democrat is half as likely as a white democrat to identify as “liberal”. This is because there are multiple political axes, and multiple political issues to consider, starting with the standard economic vs social political compass model.
This definitely becomes clearest when we escape from a narrow focus on elite college graduates in the US, and look at people from different nations entirely. You will have an easier time finding a Maoist in china than in texas, for example. They might vote D in the US as a result of perceiving the party as less anti-immigrant, but they’re not the same as a white D voter from the suburbs.
As for your experiences where political and ethnic diversity were anti-correlated: did the organisation make any effort on other aspects of diversity, other than skin colour, or did they just, say, swap out a couple of MIT grads of one race for a couple of MIT grads of a different race? Given that you say the culture didn’t change either, the latter seems likely.
I agree with you that many of the broad suggestions can be read that way. However, when the post suggests which concrete groups EA should target for the sake of philosophical and political diversity, they all seem to line up on one particular side of the aisle:
What politics are postcolonial critics of Western academia likely to have?
What politics are academics, professional communities, or indigenous Americans likely to have?
When the term “traditionally underrepresented groups” is used, does it typically refer to rural conservatives, or to other groups? What politics are these other groups likely to have?
As you pointed out, this post’s suggestions could be read as encouraging universal diversity, and I agree that the authors would likely endorse your explanation of the consequences of that. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that this post is coded with a political lean, and that many of the post’s suggestions can be reasonably read as nudging EA towards that lean.