Yes, so do I. But look at the comments on the various posts about this. Look how many people back him up, after an “apology” that basically says “I said blacks are stupider than whites, and I stand by that, but I’m sorry for using a racial slur. Also I feel the need to mention I like eugenics.”
This is not an accurate representation of Bostrom’s apology
Bostrom is a transhumanist philosopher, and has written on human enhancement; it is important to defend human enhancement as a noble pursuit and distinct from the historical eugenics movement
If Bostrom believes that there may be racial differences in intelligence, I don’t want him to lie about it.
Maintaining epistemic integrity is important as individuals, but it’s especially important for our intellectuals thinking about the long term future of humanity.
A scenario where the public statements of our intellectuals can’t be trusted because they’re optimising for social acceptability is a very bad situation. I think the aggregate harm from eroding such epistemic trust is likely much worse than the harm from Bostrom’s offensive remarks.
This. I do not think Nick Bostrom made a good apology at all for his views, but I do like CEA’s response here to link it:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ALzE9JixLLEexTKSq/cea-statement-on-nick-bostrom-s-email
Yes, so do I. But look at the comments on the various posts about this. Look how many people back him up, after an “apology” that basically says “I said blacks are stupider than whites, and I stand by that, but I’m sorry for using a racial slur. Also I feel the need to mention I like eugenics.”
I strongly disagree with this.
This is not an accurate representation of Bostrom’s apology
Bostrom is a transhumanist philosopher, and has written on human enhancement; it is important to defend human enhancement as a noble pursuit and distinct from the historical eugenics movement
If Bostrom believes that there may be racial differences in intelligence, I don’t want him to lie about it.
Maintaining epistemic integrity is important as individuals, but it’s especially important for our intellectuals thinking about the long term future of humanity.
A scenario where the public statements of our intellectuals can’t be trusted because they’re optimising for social acceptability is a very bad situation. I think the aggregate harm from eroding such epistemic trust is likely much worse than the harm from Bostrom’s offensive remarks.