I’m just going to express my honest opinions here:
The events of the last 48 hours (slightly) raised my opinion of Nick Bostrom. I was very relieved that Bostrom did not compromise his epistemic integrity by expressing more socially palatable views that are contrary to those he actually holds.
I think it would be quite tragic to compromise honestly/accurately reporting our beliefs when the situation calls for it to fit in better. I’m very glad Bostrom did not do that.
As for the contents of the email itself, while very untasteful, they were sent in a particular context to be deliberately offensive and Bostrom did regret it and apologise for it at the time. I don’t think it’s useful/valuable to judge him on the basis of an email he sent a few decades ago as a student. The Bostrom that sent the email did not reflectively endorse its contents, and current Bostrom does not either.
I’m not interested in a discussion on race & IQ, so I deliberately avoided addressing that.
What about the consequentialist case that in practice, talking about these ideas is probably hurtful to other black EAs, probably promotes racism and makes things more difficult for the EA movement, reducing impact?
Is all of this worth one guy’s sense of epistemic integrity?
I don’t think Bostrom prioritising his sense of epistemic integrity ahead of children being saved from malaria and existential risks being tackled is worthy of admiration at all.
I think your consequentialist analysis is likely wrong and misguided. I think you’re 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.
Bostrom’s original email was bad and he disavowed it. The actual apology he presented was fine IMO; he shouldn’t have pretended to believe that there are definitely no racial differences in intelligence.
“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.”
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 view—it 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 impact—there is a sweet spot to hit where your reputation is intact, where you are taken seriously, but where you are still having impact.
Here’s 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 doesn’t exist, even if that was you accurately expressing your true beliefs, you would be so far from the Overton Window that you’re probably making it more difficult for yourself to improve things for LGBT people and women. Much better to say that you’re a Muslim and you think women and LGBT people should be treated better.
I’ve written elsewhere about how EA undervalues optics—I 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 context, I’m black (Nigerian in the UK).
I’m just going to express my honest opinions here:
The events of the last 48 hours (slightly) raised my opinion of Nick Bostrom. I was very relieved that Bostrom did not compromise his epistemic integrity by expressing more socially palatable views that are contrary to those he actually holds.
I think it would be quite tragic to compromise honestly/accurately reporting our beliefs when the situation calls for it to fit in better. I’m very glad Bostrom did not do that.
As for the contents of the email itself, while very untasteful, they were sent in a particular context to be deliberately offensive and Bostrom did regret it and apologise for it at the time. I don’t think it’s useful/valuable to judge him on the basis of an email he sent a few decades ago as a student. The Bostrom that sent the email did not reflectively endorse its contents, and current Bostrom does not either.
I’m not interested in a discussion on race & IQ, so I deliberately avoided addressing that.
What about the consequentialist case that in practice, talking about these ideas is probably hurtful to other black EAs, probably promotes racism and makes things more difficult for the EA movement, reducing impact?
Is all of this worth one guy’s sense of epistemic integrity?
I don’t think Bostrom prioritising his sense of epistemic integrity ahead of children being saved from malaria and existential risks being tackled is worthy of admiration at all.
I think your consequentialist analysis is likely wrong and misguided. I think you’re 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.
Bostrom’s original email was bad and he disavowed it. The actual apology he presented was fine IMO; he shouldn’t have pretended to believe that there are definitely no racial differences in intelligence.
“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.”
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 view—it 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 impact—there is a sweet spot to hit where your reputation is intact, where you are taken seriously, but where you are still having impact.
Here’s 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 doesn’t exist, even if that was you accurately expressing your true beliefs, you would be so far from the Overton Window that you’re probably making it more difficult for yourself to improve things for LGBT people and women. Much better to say that you’re a Muslim and you think women and LGBT people should be treated better.
I’ve written elsewhere about how EA undervalues optics—I 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 it’s worth, my parents still think I’m Christian.
It lowered my opinion of him in terms of character. Not sure by how much but it definitely didn’t raise it for me.
Valid!
It’s definitely valid to lower your opinion of Bostrom’s character because of this.
I was merely presenting my own opinion because I was persuaded it needed to be heard.
I guess I prioritise somewhat different things from you.