I’m sceptical that further content in this vein will have the desired effect on EA and EA-adjacent groups and individuals who are less active on the Forum, other than to alienate them and promote a split in the movement, while also exposing EA to substantial PR risk.
I’ve refrained from making certain posts/comments on EAF in part for these reasons. I think in the long run these outcomes will be very hard to avoid, given the vastly different epistemic approaches between the two sides, and e.g., “silence is violence”, but it could be that in the short/medium term it’s really important for EA to not become a major “public enemy” of the dominant ideology of our times.
ETA: If anyone disagrees with my long-run prediction (and it’s not because something happens that makes the issue moot, like AIs take over), I’d be interested to read a story/scenario in which these outcomes are avoided.
Is “social justice” ideology really the dominant ideology in our society now? My impression is that it’s only taken seriously among young, highly-educated people.
Agreed that it’s not dominant in society at-large, though I think it is dominant in a number of important institutions (esp. higher ed, the liberal nonprofit sphere, and journalism)
Those are the circles many of us exist in. So a more precise rephrasing might be “we want to stay in touch with the political culture of our peers beyond EA.”
This could be important for epistemic reasons. Antagonistic relationships make it hard to gather information when things are wrong internally.
Of course, PR-based deference is also a form of antagonistic relationship. What would a healthy yet independent relationship between EA and the social justice movement look like?
Maybe we’re just using the word “dominant” in different ways? I meant it in the sense of “most important, powerful, or influential”, and not something like “sincerely believed by the majority of people” which may be what you have in mind? (I don’t believe the latter is true yet.)
It makes sense that what is most important, powerful, or influential in national politics is still highly correlated with what most people in our society sincerely believe, due to secret ballot voting and the national scope, but I think in many other arenas, some arguably more important than current national politics (e.g. because they play an outsized role in the economy or in determining what future generations will believe), local concentrating of true believers and preference falsification have caused a divergence between the two senses of “dominant”.
I’ve refrained from making certain posts/comments on EAF in part for these reasons. I think in the long run these outcomes will be very hard to avoid, given the vastly different epistemic approaches between the two sides, and e.g., “silence is violence”, but it could be that in the short/medium term it’s really important for EA to not become a major “public enemy” of the dominant ideology of our times.
ETA: If anyone disagrees with my long-run prediction (and it’s not because something happens that makes the issue moot, like AIs take over), I’d be interested to read a story/scenario in which these outcomes are avoided.
Is “social justice” ideology really the dominant ideology in our society now? My impression is that it’s only taken seriously among young, highly-educated people.
Agreed that it’s not dominant in society at-large, though I think it is dominant in a number of important institutions (esp. higher ed, the liberal nonprofit sphere, and journalism)
Those are the circles many of us exist in. So a more precise rephrasing might be “we want to stay in touch with the political culture of our peers beyond EA.”
This could be important for epistemic reasons. Antagonistic relationships make it hard to gather information when things are wrong internally.
Of course, PR-based deference is also a form of antagonistic relationship. What would a healthy yet independent relationship between EA and the social justice movement look like?
Cullen asked a similar question here recently. Progressives and social justice movement are definitely not the same, but there’s some overlap.
Maybe we’re just using the word “dominant” in different ways? I meant it in the sense of “most important, powerful, or influential”, and not something like “sincerely believed by the majority of people” which may be what you have in mind? (I don’t believe the latter is true yet.)
I don’t think the former is true either (with respect to national politics).
It makes sense that what is most important, powerful, or influential in national politics is still highly correlated with what most people in our society sincerely believe, due to secret ballot voting and the national scope, but I think in many other arenas, some arguably more important than current national politics (e.g. because they play an outsized role in the economy or in determining what future generations will believe), local concentrating of true believers and preference falsification have caused a divergence between the two senses of “dominant”.