I’ve been thinking a lot about this recentlytoo. Unfortunately I didn’t see this AMA until now but hopefully it’s not too late to chime in. My biggest worry about SJ in relation to EA is that the political correctness / cancel culture / censorship that seems endemic in SJ (i.e., there are certain beliefs that you have to signal complete certainty in, or face accusations of various “isms” or “phobias”, or worse, get demoted/fired/deplatformed) will come to affect EA as well.
I can see at least two ways of this happening to EA:
Whatever social dynamic is responsible for this happening within SJ applies to EA as well, and EA will become like SJ in this regard for purely internal reasons. (In this case EA will probably come to have a different set of politically correct beliefs from SJ that one must profess faith in.)
SJ comes to control even more of the cultural/intellectual “high grounds” (journalism, academia, K-12 education, tech industry, departments within EA organizations, etc.) than it already does, and EA will be forced to play by SJ’s rules. (See second link above for one specific scenario that worries me.)
From your answers so far it seems like you’re not particularly worried about this. If you have good reasons to not worry about this, please share them so I can move on to other problems myself.
(I think SJ is already actively doing harm because it pursues actions/policies based on these politically correct beliefs, many of which are likely wrong but can’t be argued about. But I’m more worried about EA potentially doing this in the future because EAs tend to pursue more consequential actions/policies that will be much more disastrous (in terms of benefits foregone if nothing else) if they are wrong.)
I completely agree that we should be wary of those aspects of SJ as well. I’m not sure that I’m “less” worried about it than you; I do worry about it. However, I have not seen much of this behavior in the EA community so I am not immediately worried and have some reasons to be fairly optimistic in the long run:
Founder effects and strong communal norms towards open discussion in the EA community to which I think most newcomers get pretty heavily inculcated.
Cause prioritization and consequentialism are somewhat incongruous with these things, since many of the things that can get people to be unfairly “canceled” are quite small from an EA perspective.
Heavy influence of and connection to philosophy selects for openness norms as well.
Ability and motivation to selectively adopt the best SJ positions without adopting some of its most harmful practices.
To restate, I would definitely be pretty wary of any attempt to reform EA in a way that seriously endangered norms of civility, open debate, intellectual inquiry, etc. as they currently are practiced. I actually think we do a very good job as a movement of balancing these goals. This is part of why I currently spend more time in EA than SJ.
Founder effects and strong communal norms towards open discussion in the EA community to which I think most newcomers get pretty heavily inculcated.
This does not reassure me very much, because academia used to have strong openness norms but is quickly losing them or has already lost them almost everywhere, and it seems easy for founders to lose their influence (i.e., be pushed out or aside) these days, especially if they do not belong to one of the SJ-recognized marginalized/oppressed groups (and I think founders of EA mostly do not?).
Cause prioritization and consequentialism are somewhat incongruous with these things, since many of the things that can get people to be unfairly “canceled” are quite small from an EA perspective.
One could say that seeking knowledge and maximizing profits are somewhat incongruous with these things, but that hasn’t stopped academia and corporations from adopting harmful SJ practices.
Heavy influence of and connection to philosophy selects for openness norms as well.
Again it doesn’t seem like openness norms offer enough protection against whatever social dynamics is operating.
Ability and motivation to selectively adopt the best SJ positions without adopting some of its most harmful practices.
Surely people in academia and business also had the motivation to avoid the most harmful practices, but perhaps didn’t have the ability? Why do you think that EA has the ability? I don’t see any evidence, at least from the perspective of someone not privy to private or internal discussions, that any EA person has a good understanding of the social dynamics driving adoption of the harmful practices, or (aside from you and a few others I know who don’t seem to be close to the centers of EA) are even thinking about this topic at all.
Example of institutions being taken over by cancel culture and driving out their founders:
Like Andrew Sullivan, who joined Substack after parting ways with New York magazine, and Glenn Greenwald, who joined Substack after resigning from The Intercept, which he co-founded, Yglesias felt that he could no longer speak his mind without riling his colleagues. His managers wanted him to maintain a “restrained, institutional, statesmanlike voice,” he told me in a phone interview, in part because he was a co-founder of Vox. But as a relative moderate at the publication, he felt at times that it was important to challenge what he called the “dominant sensibility” in the “young-college-graduate bubble” that now sets the tone at many digital-media organizations.
I think I agree that academic philosophy tends to have above-average openness norms—but note that academic philosophy has mostly lost them at this point, at least when it comes to topics related to SJ. I can provide examples of this on request; there are plenty to see on Daily Nous.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently too. Unfortunately I didn’t see this AMA until now but hopefully it’s not too late to chime in. My biggest worry about SJ in relation to EA is that the political correctness / cancel culture / censorship that seems endemic in SJ (i.e., there are certain beliefs that you have to signal complete certainty in, or face accusations of various “isms” or “phobias”, or worse, get demoted/fired/deplatformed) will come to affect EA as well.
I can see at least two ways of this happening to EA:
Whatever social dynamic is responsible for this happening within SJ applies to EA as well, and EA will become like SJ in this regard for purely internal reasons. (In this case EA will probably come to have a different set of politically correct beliefs from SJ that one must profess faith in.)
SJ comes to control even more of the cultural/intellectual “high grounds” (journalism, academia, K-12 education, tech industry, departments within EA organizations, etc.) than it already does, and EA will be forced to play by SJ’s rules. (See second link above for one specific scenario that worries me.)
From your answers so far it seems like you’re not particularly worried about this. If you have good reasons to not worry about this, please share them so I can move on to other problems myself.
(I think SJ is already actively doing harm because it pursues actions/policies based on these politically correct beliefs, many of which are likely wrong but can’t be argued about. But I’m more worried about EA potentially doing this in the future because EAs tend to pursue more consequential actions/policies that will be much more disastrous (in terms of benefits foregone if nothing else) if they are wrong.)
Thanks Wei! This is a very thoughtful comment.
I completely agree that we should be wary of those aspects of SJ as well. I’m not sure that I’m “less” worried about it than you; I do worry about it. However, I have not seen much of this behavior in the EA community so I am not immediately worried and have some reasons to be fairly optimistic in the long run:
Founder effects and strong communal norms towards open discussion in the EA community to which I think most newcomers get pretty heavily inculcated.
Cause prioritization and consequentialism are somewhat incongruous with these things, since many of the things that can get people to be unfairly “canceled” are quite small from an EA perspective.
Heavy influence of and connection to philosophy selects for openness norms as well.
Ability and motivation to selectively adopt the best SJ positions without adopting some of its most harmful practices.
To restate, I would definitely be pretty wary of any attempt to reform EA in a way that seriously endangered norms of civility, open debate, intellectual inquiry, etc. as they currently are practiced. I actually think we do a very good job as a movement of balancing these goals. This is part of why I currently spend more time in EA than SJ.
This does not reassure me very much, because academia used to have strong openness norms but is quickly losing them or has already lost them almost everywhere, and it seems easy for founders to lose their influence (i.e., be pushed out or aside) these days, especially if they do not belong to one of the SJ-recognized marginalized/oppressed groups (and I think founders of EA mostly do not?).
One could say that seeking knowledge and maximizing profits are somewhat incongruous with these things, but that hasn’t stopped academia and corporations from adopting harmful SJ practices.
Again it doesn’t seem like openness norms offer enough protection against whatever social dynamics is operating.
Surely people in academia and business also had the motivation to avoid the most harmful practices, but perhaps didn’t have the ability? Why do you think that EA has the ability? I don’t see any evidence, at least from the perspective of someone not privy to private or internal discussions, that any EA person has a good understanding of the social dynamics driving adoption of the harmful practices, or (aside from you and a few others I know who don’t seem to be close to the centers of EA) are even thinking about this topic at all.
Example of institutions being taken over by cancel culture and driving out their founders:
I think I agree that academic philosophy tends to have above-average openness norms—but note that academic philosophy has mostly lost them at this point, at least when it comes to topics related to SJ. I can provide examples of this on request; there are plenty to see on Daily Nous.