I think your consequentialist analysis is likely wrong and misguided. I think youโre overstating the effects of the harms Bostrom perpetuated?
I think a movement where our leading intellectuals felt pressured to distort their views for social acceptability is a movement that does a worse job of making the world a better place.
Bostromโs original email was bad and he disavowed it. The actual apology he presented was fine IMO; he shouldnโt have pretended to believe that there are definitely no racial differences in intelligence.
โI think a movement where our leading intellectuals felt pressured to distort their views for social acceptability is a movement that does a worse job of making the world a better place.โ
Putting aside my view that Bostrom is wrong anyway and more generally putting this specific incident to one side, I think this is too strong a viewโit very much depends on what the specific views are. I think veering too far from Overton Windows too quickly makes it harder to have an impactโthere is a sweet spot to hit where your reputation is intact, where you are taken seriously, but where you are still having impact.
Hereโs a very unrelated example of how ignoring social acceptability could make it harder to have impact:
If you were an atheist in a rural, conservative part of Afghanistan today aiming to improve the world by challenging the mistreatment of women and LGBT people, and you told people that you think that God doesnโt exist, even if that was you accurately expressing your true beliefs, you would be so far from the Overton Window that youโre probably making it more difficult for yourself to improve things for LGBT people and women. Much better to say that youโre a Muslim and you think women and LGBT people should be treated better.
Iโve written elsewhere about how EA undervalues opticsโI think the reverance of this virtue of disregarding social acceptability has been absorbed from the rationalist community, but will frequently make it harder to improve the world from a consequentialist view.
I think your consequentialist analysis is likely wrong and misguided. I think youโre overstating the effects of the harms Bostrom perpetuated?
I think a movement where our leading intellectuals felt pressured to distort their views for social acceptability is a movement that does a worse job of making the world a better place.
Bostromโs original email was bad and he disavowed it. The actual apology he presented was fine IMO; he shouldnโt have pretended to believe that there are definitely no racial differences in intelligence.
โI think a movement where our leading intellectuals felt pressured to distort their views for social acceptability is a movement that does a worse job of making the world a better place.โ
Putting aside my view that Bostrom is wrong anyway and more generally putting this specific incident to one side, I think this is too strong a viewโit very much depends on what the specific views are. I think veering too far from Overton Windows too quickly makes it harder to have an impactโthere is a sweet spot to hit where your reputation is intact, where you are taken seriously, but where you are still having impact.
Hereโs a very unrelated example of how ignoring social acceptability could make it harder to have impact:
If you were an atheist in a rural, conservative part of Afghanistan today aiming to improve the world by challenging the mistreatment of women and LGBT people, and you told people that you think that God doesnโt exist, even if that was you accurately expressing your true beliefs, you would be so far from the Overton Window that youโre probably making it more difficult for yourself to improve things for LGBT people and women. Much better to say that youโre a Muslim and you think women and LGBT people should be treated better.
Iโve written elsewhere about how EA undervalues opticsโI think the reverance of this virtue of disregarding social acceptability has been absorbed from the rationalist community, but will frequently make it harder to improve the world from a consequentialist view.
For what itโs worth, my parents still think Iโm Christian.