Hi, this is meant to be a reply to your reply to Anna. Please post it for me. [...]
Agreed that Anna seems to be misinterpreting you or not addressing your main point. The biggest question in my mind is whether EA will be on the wrong side of the revolution anyway, because we’re an ideological competitor and a bundle of resources that can be expropriated. Even if that’s the case though, maybe we still have to play the odds and just hope to fly under the radar somehow.
Seems like hiring some history professors as consultants might be a good use of money for EA orgs at this point. It would be really helpful to have answers to questions like: Did any society ever manage to stop a cultural revolution after it has progressed to a stage analogous to the current one, and if so how (aside from letting it exhaust itself)? From historical precedent can we predict whether EA will be targeted? Were there relatively small groups that managed to survive these revolutions with their people/culture/property/relationships intact and if so how?
FWIW, I don’t think a cultural revolution is very likely, just likely enough (>1%) that we shouldn’t only think about object-level considerations when deciding whether to sign a petition or speak out publicly in support of someone.
I also suspect history professors will not be able to answer this honestly and dispassionately in worlds where a cultural revolution is likely.
I received this as a private message:
FWIW, I don’t think a cultural revolution is very likely, just likely enough (>1%) that we shouldn’t only think about object-level considerations when deciding whether to sign a petition or speak out publicly in support of someone.
I also suspect history professors will not be able to answer this honestly and dispassionately in worlds where a cultural revolution is likely.
I don’t think the above reply is supposed to be pasted twice?
Fixed, thank you!