He asserts that “numerous people have come forward, both publicly and privately, over the past few years with stories of being intimidated, silenced, or ‘canceled.’” This doesn’t match my experience.
I also have not had this experience, though that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, and I’d want to take this seriously if it did happen.
However, Phil Torres has demonstrated that he isn’t above bending the truth in service of his goals, so I’m inclined not to believe him. See previous discussion here. Example from the new article:
It’s not difficult to see how this way of thinking could have genocidally catastrophic consequences if political actors were to “[take] Bostrom’s argument to heart,” in Häggström’s words.
My understanding (sorry that the link is probably private) is that Torres is very aware that Häggström generally agrees with longtermism and provides the example as a way not to do longtermism, but that doesn’t stop Torres from using it to argue that this is what longtermism implies and therefore all longtermists are horrible.
I should note that even if this were written by someone else, I probably wouldn’t have investigated the supposed intimidation, silencing, or canceling even in the absence of this example, because:
It seems super unlikely for people I know to intimidate / silence / cancel
Claims of “lots of X has happened” without evidence tend to be exaggerated
Haters gonna hate, the hate should not be expected to correlate with truth
But in this case I feel especially justified for not investigating.
This is far from the first time that Phil Torres references my work in a way that is set up to give the misleading impression that I share his anti-longtermism view. He and I had extensive communication about this in 2020, but he showed no sympathy for my complaints.
I also have not had this experience, though that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, and I’d want to take this seriously if it did happen.
However, Phil Torres has demonstrated that he isn’t above bending the truth in service of his goals, so I’m inclined not to believe him. See previous discussion here. Example from the new article:
My understanding (sorry that the link is probably private) is that Torres is very aware that Häggström generally agrees with longtermism and provides the example as a way not to do longtermism, but that doesn’t stop Torres from using it to argue that this is what longtermism implies and therefore all longtermists are horrible.
I should note that even if this were written by someone else, I probably wouldn’t have investigated the supposed intimidation, silencing, or canceling even in the absence of this example, because:
It seems super unlikely for people I know to intimidate / silence / cancel
Claims of “lots of X has happened” without evidence tend to be exaggerated
Haters gonna hate, the hate should not be expected to correlate with truth
But in this case I feel especially justified for not investigating.
Many thanks for this, Rohin. Indeed, your understanding is correct. Here is my own screenshot of my private announcement on this matter.
This is far from the first time that Phil Torres references my work in a way that is set up to give the misleading impression that I share his anti-longtermism view. He and I had extensive communication about this in 2020, but he showed no sympathy for my complaints.
Thanks for sharing. It looks like this article is less of a good faith effort than I had thought