(I’m not sure how much the group admins want the group description waved around on the Forum, given that nobody has linked to it so far. I’ve tried to strike the right balance here but am open to cutting stuff if a group admin tells me they’d prefer something different.)
The group describes itself as a “group for EAs into getting on with conservatives and liberals alike, and who want EA itself to be more welcoming to people of all different political stripes”, and links to resources that are clearly in support of open discussion and against censoring true beliefs for the sake of avoiding offence. It even explicitly says controversial topics “are welcome”, as long as you “use stricter epistemic standards in proportion to how offensive [your claim] is”.
Even though it does not make any angry claims about cancel culture, I defend my claim that this group is clearly oriented towards the free-speech end of EA and away from the censor-opposing-views-to-protect-vulnerable-groups end.
I’m not saying the group is bad! Merely that I think, based on evidence, that my claim is reasonable. I also still don’t understand why joining this group would address these problems; I think explaining the model for the last thing might be a more effective way to change my mind, but it also might be too much of a tangent for this comment thread.
Maybe your sense of what you’re claiming and my sense of what you’re claiming are using different meanings of ‘cancel culture’. In your previous comment, you wrote
‘On the other hand, we’ve had quite a bit of anti-cancel-culture stuff on the Forum lately. There’s been much more of that than of pro-SJ/pro-DEI content, and it’s generally got much higher karma. I think the message that the subset of EA that is highly active on the Forum generally disapproves of cancel culture has been made pretty clearly’
So I’ve been assuming that you were referring to ‘pro-SJ/DEI’ and ‘anti-cancel-culture’ more or less antonymonously. Yes, the group is against deplatforming (at least, without extreme epistemic/moral caution), no it’s not against SJ/DEI.
Inasmuch as they’re different concepts, then I don’t see you you couldn’t think anti-cancel-culture—which is basically ‘pro-segregation’ - culture wouldn’t help prevent a split! The point is then not to exclude any cultural group, but to discourage segregation, hostility, and poor epistemics when discussing this stuff.
I think the relevant split is between people who have different standards and different preferences for enforcing discourse norms. The ideal type position on the SJ side is that a significant number of claims relating to certain protected characteristics are beyond the pale and should be subject to strict social sanctions. The facebook group seems to on the over side of this divide.
(I’m not sure how much the group admins want the group description waved around on the Forum, given that nobody has linked to it so far. I’ve tried to strike the right balance here but am open to cutting stuff if a group admin tells me they’d prefer something different.)
The group describes itself as a “group for EAs into getting on with conservatives and liberals alike, and who want EA itself to be more welcoming to people of all different political stripes”, and links to resources that are clearly in support of open discussion and against censoring true beliefs for the sake of avoiding offence. It even explicitly says controversial topics “are welcome”, as long as you “use stricter epistemic standards in proportion to how offensive [your claim] is”.
Even though it does not make any angry claims about cancel culture, I defend my claim that this group is clearly oriented towards the free-speech end of EA and away from the censor-opposing-views-to-protect-vulnerable-groups end.
I’m not saying the group is bad! Merely that I think, based on evidence, that my claim is reasonable. I also still don’t understand why joining this group would address these problems; I think explaining the model for the last thing might be a more effective way to change my mind, but it also might be too much of a tangent for this comment thread.
Maybe your sense of what you’re claiming and my sense of what you’re claiming are using different meanings of ‘cancel culture’. In your previous comment, you wrote
So I’ve been assuming that you were referring to ‘pro-SJ/DEI’ and ‘anti-cancel-culture’ more or less antonymonously. Yes, the group is against deplatforming (at least, without extreme epistemic/moral caution), no it’s not against SJ/DEI.
Inasmuch as they’re different concepts, then I don’t see you you couldn’t think anti-cancel-culture—which is basically ‘pro-segregation’ - culture wouldn’t help prevent a split! The point is then not to exclude any cultural group, but to discourage segregation, hostility, and poor epistemics when discussing this stuff.
I think the relevant split is between people who have different standards and different preferences for enforcing discourse norms. The ideal type position on the SJ side is that a significant number of claims relating to certain protected characteristics are beyond the pale and should be subject to strict social sanctions. The facebook group seems to on the over side of this divide.