I received this as a private message. It was unclear to me if it was initially intended as a comment, but I asked and they gave permission for me to do this:
I’m quite bothered by the implicit assumption that this is in fact a cultural revolution. I think the degree to which people will find supporting Hsu offensive is completely dwarfed by how offensive people will find offshoots of the Floyd protests as equivalent to the Cultural Revolution. As noted in https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4859, there are steel man versions of the Hsu complaint in particular (though I don’t personally have a view).
So if you’re trying to preserve EA credibility, implicitly saying we’re living through a Cultural Revolution could be extremely damaging.
Should be “is completely dwarfed by offensive people will find the idea that offshoots of the Floyd protests are equivalent to the Cultural Revolution”.
One can defend or not defend Hsu (again, I haven’t looked at it enough to have a personal view) without making extreme claims about Cultural Revolutions, and both routes (defending or not defending) seem *way* better than crying Cultural Revolution.
If it isn’t clear, I’m biased here, in that I personally find the Cultural Revolution claims offensive.
First of all, I sincerely apologize for any offense it may have caused. For what it’s worth:
1. I obviously do not think we’re living in a cultural revolution yet. The amount of harm caused by the 1960s cultural revolution to lives and livelihoods is severe, and the existing job losses and social disapproval caused by SJ actors is very minor in the grand scheme of things.
2. I do see how this comparison can be offensive. I’m not sure how else to disseminate my worries accurately without causing offense.
3. I personally think we’re obviously not in the cultural revolution now, but that there’s a moderately high probability that we are on that trajectory (over 1% seems intuitively defensible, my true probability is probably like 7%)
4. I think if we are on the trajectory of a cultural revolution, calling it early will definitely be wrong-think. It’s unclear to me how to think about this. My guess is that if we’re 10 years away, this weird claim will be swept under the rug relative to other offenses, and the positive benefit of open communication now + creating norms around minimally invasive self-censorship will be helpful. If on the other hand, cultural revolution-like activities are within the 1-5 year timescale, using such language will be too “on the nose” and this post itself is a structural risk...
5. One possibility is to move all conversations about this offline and try to approach EA leaders in person, which the pandemic certainly makes difficult.
6. One thing I did not mention in my post but those seem quite relevant is that conditional upon a cultural revolution-like event happening, it’s hard to predict which side will launch a cultural revolution. This is also why I think we should not go out of our way to support SJ as a movement (though individuals can make their decisions based on their conscience or individual bids). The rise of various right-wing demagogues in the West also looks quite dangerous to me, and would be a structural risk to the movement as well, though my personal guess is that right-wing demagoguery tends to be parochial, so is less dangerous to a geographically mobile movement. Another thing driving my thoughts here is that we’re too much culturally left at our roots anyway (at least by American/Anglophone standards), so surviving a right wing dictatorship is likely a lost cause.
I received this as a private message. It was unclear to me if it was initially intended as a comment, but I asked and they gave permission for me to do this:
First of all, I sincerely apologize for any offense it may have caused. For what it’s worth:
1. I obviously do not think we’re living in a cultural revolution yet. The amount of harm caused by the 1960s cultural revolution to lives and livelihoods is severe, and the existing job losses and social disapproval caused by SJ actors is very minor in the grand scheme of things.
2. I do see how this comparison can be offensive. I’m not sure how else to disseminate my worries accurately without causing offense.
3. I personally think we’re obviously not in the cultural revolution now, but that there’s a moderately high probability that we are on that trajectory (over 1% seems intuitively defensible, my true probability is probably like 7%)
4. I think if we are on the trajectory of a cultural revolution, calling it early will definitely be wrong-think. It’s unclear to me how to think about this. My guess is that if we’re 10 years away, this weird claim will be swept under the rug relative to other offenses, and the positive benefit of open communication now + creating norms around minimally invasive self-censorship will be helpful. If on the other hand, cultural revolution-like activities are within the 1-5 year timescale, using such language will be too “on the nose” and this post itself is a structural risk...
5. One possibility is to move all conversations about this offline and try to approach EA leaders in person, which the pandemic certainly makes difficult.
6. One thing I did not mention in my post but those seem quite relevant is that conditional upon a cultural revolution-like event happening, it’s hard to predict which side will launch a cultural revolution. This is also why I think we should not go out of our way to support SJ as a movement (though individuals can make their decisions based on their conscience or individual bids). The rise of various right-wing demagogues in the West also looks quite dangerous to me, and would be a structural risk to the movement as well, though my personal guess is that right-wing demagoguery tends to be parochial, so is less dangerous to a geographically mobile movement. Another thing driving my thoughts here is that we’re too much culturally left at our roots anyway (at least by American/Anglophone standards), so surviving a right wing dictatorship is likely a lost cause.