Executive summary: The Guardian’s recent hit piece on the Manifest conference is filled with factual errors and unfairly smears attendees for having controversial views, but associating with people who have differing opinions is valuable and attempting to cancel them will lead to a society of boring conformists.
Key points:
The Guardian article smears Manifest attendees by cherry-picking controversial statements or associations, without engaging with their actual views.
Most people, if pressed, will express some views that sound bad out of context. Thinking deeply about topics like morality often leads to accepting unsavory implications.
Cancel culture punishes people for being interesting and saying things outside the Overton window. Only boring conformists are safe.
Associating with people who have controversial views is valuable and can lead to depolarization. Shunning them is not justified.
Social norms are often wrong, so even a perfectly rational thinker would constantly disagree with them. Stifling controversial views will lead to self-censorship and uninteresting groupthink.
The Manifest attendees weren’t even disproportionately right-wing. The Guardian is unfairly trying to cancel them for being interesting and thinking for themselves.
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Executive summary: The Guardian’s recent hit piece on the Manifest conference is filled with factual errors and unfairly smears attendees for having controversial views, but associating with people who have differing opinions is valuable and attempting to cancel them will lead to a society of boring conformists.
Key points:
The Guardian article smears Manifest attendees by cherry-picking controversial statements or associations, without engaging with their actual views.
Most people, if pressed, will express some views that sound bad out of context. Thinking deeply about topics like morality often leads to accepting unsavory implications.
Cancel culture punishes people for being interesting and saying things outside the Overton window. Only boring conformists are safe.
Associating with people who have controversial views is valuable and can lead to depolarization. Shunning them is not justified.
Social norms are often wrong, so even a perfectly rational thinker would constantly disagree with them. Stifling controversial views will lead to self-censorship and uninteresting groupthink.
The Manifest attendees weren’t even disproportionately right-wing. The Guardian is unfairly trying to cancel them for being interesting and thinking for themselves.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.