Thanks to everyone who voted for our next debate week topic! Final votes were locked in at 9am this morning.
We canât announce a winner immediately, because the highest karma topic (and perhaps some of the others) touches on issues related to our politics on the EA Forum policy. Once weâve clarified which topics we would be able to run, weâll be able to announce a winner.
Once we have, Iâll work on honing the exact wording. Iâll write a post with a few options, so that you can have input into the exact version we end up discussing.
PS: Apologies for the delay here â in retrospect, I should have checked on adherence to our policy before allowing voting. In the now very likely event that we cannot have the highest karma discussion on the EA Forum, Iâd remind you that this is not the only place for EA-related discussions on the internet â Substack and Twitter do not have our politics policy.
On the other hand, deciding that democratic backsliding is off limits, and not even trying to have a conversation about it, could (rightfully, in my view) be treated as evidence of EA being in an ivory tower and disconnected from the real world.
As the person who led the development of that policy (for whatever thatâs worth), I think the Forum team should be willing to make an exception in this case and allow looser restrictions around political discussion, at least as a test. As Nick noted, the current era isnât so far from qualifying under the kind of exception already mentioned in that post.
(The âDestroy Human Civilization Partyâ may not exist, but if the worldâs leading aid funder and AI powerhouse is led by a group whose goals include drastically curtailing global aid and accelerating AI progress with explicit disregard for safety, thatâs getting into natural EA territoryâeven without taking democratic backsliding into account.)
Iâm a bit surprised by this decision. This is the EA forum and this is an emerging area which could be important to discuss (personally Iâm super skeptical of tractability but keen to hear ideas). It doesnât seem very âEAâ to censor topics because they might be difficultâheck Iâve been downvoted for suggesting that at time before.
If the topic is specifically about âcountering democatic backslidingâvs. other long termist concerns, I think we could (almost) discuss this without violating the forum norms tooooo much. And you even say at the bottom of the page
âwe reserve the right to make exceptions in exceptional circumstances. For example, if the favored candidate of the âDestroy Human Civilizationâ party is leading the polls in a nuclear-armed nation, that seems to merit a Frontpage post about how to stop themâ. Weâre not there right now, but things are starting to look a bit hairy ;).
And if it turns nasty or into partisan debate, you could just shut it town and say âI told you soâ ..
Thanks Toby. The winning topic was, âCountering democratic backsliding is now a more urgent issue than more traditional longtermist concernsâ?
I feel like this doesnât violate your rules, because itâs discussing something âdirectly connected to cause EA areasâ. Democracy isnât a top three cause area, but itâs notnot a cause area. In any case, in my opinion the rules are obviously well-intentioned and mostly helpful, but at the end of the day it would be fine to bend them here.
Nice one @Toby Tremlettđč . If the forum dictators decide that the democratically selected topic of democratic backsliding is not allowed, I will genuninely be OK with that decision ;).
Thanks to everyone who voted for our next debate week topic! Final votes were locked in at 9am this morning.
We canât announce a winner immediately, because the highest karma topic (and perhaps some of the others) touches on issues related to our politics on the EA Forum policy. Once weâve clarified which topics we would be able to run, weâll be able to announce a winner.
Once we have, Iâll work on honing the exact wording. Iâll write a post with a few options, so that you can have input into the exact version we end up discussing.
PS: Apologies for the delay here â in retrospect, I should have checked on adherence to our policy before allowing voting. In the now very likely event that we cannot have the highest karma discussion on the EA Forum, Iâd remind you that this is not the only place for EA-related discussions on the internet â Substack and Twitter do not have our politics policy.
I think allowing this debate to happen would be a fantastic opportunity to put our money where our mouth is regarding not ignoring systemic issues:
https://ââ80000hours.org/ââ2020/ââ08/ââmisconceptions-effective-altruism/ââ#misconception-3-effective-altruism-ignores-systemic-change
On the other hand, deciding that democratic backsliding is off limits, and not even trying to have a conversation about it, could (rightfully, in my view) be treated as evidence of EA being in an ivory tower and disconnected from the real world.
As the person who led the development of that policy (for whatever thatâs worth), I think the Forum team should be willing to make an exception in this case and allow looser restrictions around political discussion, at least as a test. As Nick noted, the current era isnât so far from qualifying under the kind of exception already mentioned in that post.
(The âDestroy Human Civilization Partyâ may not exist, but if the worldâs leading aid funder and AI powerhouse is led by a group whose goals include drastically curtailing global aid and accelerating AI progress with explicit disregard for safety, thatâs getting into natural EA territoryâeven without taking democratic backsliding into account.)
Iâm a bit surprised by this decision. This is the EA forum and this is an emerging area which could be important to discuss (personally Iâm super skeptical of tractability but keen to hear ideas). It doesnât seem very âEAâ to censor topics because they might be difficultâheck Iâve been downvoted for suggesting that at time before.
If the topic is specifically about âcountering democatic backslidingâ vs. other long termist concerns, I think we could (almost) discuss this without violating the forum norms tooooo much. And you even say at the bottom of the page
âwe reserve the right to make exceptions in exceptional circumstances. For example, if the favored candidate of the âDestroy Human Civilizationâ party is leading the polls in a nuclear-armed nation, that seems to merit a Frontpage post about how to stop themâ. Weâre not there right now, but things are starting to look a bit hairy ;).
And if it turns nasty or into partisan debate, you could just shut it town and say âI told you soâ ..
Thanks Toby. The winning topic was, âCountering democratic backsliding is now a more urgent issue than more traditional longtermist concernsâ?
I feel like this doesnât violate your rules, because itâs discussing something âdirectly connected to cause EA areasâ. Democracy isnât a top three cause area, but itâs not not a cause area. In any case, in my opinion the rules are obviously well-intentioned and mostly helpful, but at the end of the day it would be fine to bend them here.
Thanks for the comments @Clara Torres Latorre đž @NickLaing @Aaron Gertler đž @Ben Stevenson. This is all useful to hear. I should have an update later this month.
Nice one @Toby Tremlettđč . If the forum dictators decide that the democratically selected topic of democratic backsliding is not allowed, I will genuninely be OK with that decision ;).