I agree that post was very bad (I left a long comment explaining part of why I strong-downvoted it). But I think there’s a version of that post, that is phrased more moderately and tries harder to be charitable to its opponents, that I think would get a lot more sympathy from the left of EA. (I expect I would still disagree with it quite strongly.)
I think there’s a reasonable policy one could advocate, something like “don’t link to heavily-downvoted posts you disagree with, because doing so undermines the filtering function of the karma system”. I’m not sure I agree with that in all cases; in this case, it would have been hard for me to write this post without referencing that one, I think the things I say here need saying, and I ran this post by several people I respect before publishing it.
I could probably be persuaded to change that part given some more voices/arguments in opposition, here or in private.
(It’s also worth noting that I expect there are a number of people here who think comparisons of the current situation to the Cultural Revolution are quite bad, see e.g. here.)
I agree that comparisons to the Cultural Revolution are bad. As someone with family members who were alive during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (one of whom died because of it), I’m pretty unsympathetic to people saying cancel culture is the new cultural revolution.
Many other people who are personally connected to the Chinese Cultural Revolution are the people making the comparisons, though. Eg the EA who I see posting the most about this (who I don’t think would want to be named here) is Chinese.
Yes, I’ve spoken in depth with one. I don’t believe he shouldn’t be able to make the comparison, but we agreed the comparison has no predictive power and is one of many comparisons that could be made (eg you could probably just as easily compare the current situation to witch hunts which is a more common analogy in Western circles).
We also agreed there are dissimilarities (eg in this situation in America there’s no state backing of anyone being targeted; in fact, social justice protestors are much more likely to be injured or killed by the state than the people they oppose)
I agree that post was very bad (I left a long comment explaining part of why I strong-downvoted it). But I think there’s a version of that post, that is phrased more moderately and tries harder to be charitable to its opponents, that I think would get a lot more sympathy from the left of EA. (I expect I would still disagree with it quite strongly.)
I think there’s a reasonable policy one could advocate, something like “don’t link to heavily-downvoted posts you disagree with, because doing so undermines the filtering function of the karma system”. I’m not sure I agree with that in all cases; in this case, it would have been hard for me to write this post without referencing that one, I think the things I say here need saying, and I ran this post by several people I respect before publishing it.
I could probably be persuaded to change that part given some more voices/arguments in opposition, here or in private.
(It’s also worth noting that I expect there are a number of people here who think comparisons of the current situation to the Cultural Revolution are quite bad, see e.g. here.)
I think that both the Cultural Revolution comparisons and the complaints about Cultural Revolution comparisons are way less bad than that post.
I agree that comparisons to the Cultural Revolution are bad. As someone with family members who were alive during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (one of whom died because of it), I’m pretty unsympathetic to people saying cancel culture is the new cultural revolution.
Many other people who are personally connected to the Chinese Cultural Revolution are the people making the comparisons, though. Eg the EA who I see posting the most about this (who I don’t think would want to be named here) is Chinese.
Yes, I’ve spoken in depth with one. I don’t believe he shouldn’t be able to make the comparison, but we agreed the comparison has no predictive power and is one of many comparisons that could be made (eg you could probably just as easily compare the current situation to witch hunts which is a more common analogy in Western circles).
We also agreed there are dissimilarities (eg in this situation in America there’s no state backing of anyone being targeted; in fact, social justice protestors are much more likely to be injured or killed by the state than the people they oppose)
(I have now cut the link.)