If it’s only a tiny nudge, why are we talking about it?
Why is it important for a teacher to give a harsh detention to the first student who challenges their authority, or for countries to defend their borders strictly rather than let it slide if someone encroaches just a few kilometres?
An expectation is being set here. Worse, an expectation has been set that threats of protest are a legitimate way to influence decision-making in our community. You have ceded authority to Slate by obeying their smear-piece on Hanson. Hanson is one of our people, you left him hanging in favour of what Slate thought.
If it’s only a tiny nudge, why are we talking about it?
I’m talking about something I considered a tiny nudge because I thought that a lot of people, including people who are pretty influential in communities I care about it, either reacted uncharitably or treated the issue as a much larger deal than it was.
You have ceded authority to Slate by obeying their smear-piece on Hanson. Hanson is one of our people, you left him hanging in favour of what Slate thought.
To whom is “you” meant to refer? I don’t work on CEA’s community health team and I’ve never been in contact with EA Munich about any of this.
I also personally disagreed with their decision and (as I noted in the post) thought the Slate piece was really bad. But my disagreeing with them doesn’t mean I can’t try to think through different elements of the situation and see it through the eyes of the people who had to deal with it.
I think the issue here is attempting to unilaterally disarm in a culture war. If your attitude is “let’s through different elements of the situation and see it through the eyes of the people” , and their attitude is “let’s use the most effective memetic superweapons we have access to to destroy everyone we disagree with”, then you’re going to lose and they are going to win.
A stark conclusion of “you’re going to lose” seems like it’s updating too much on a small number of examples.
For every story we hear about someone being cancelled, how many times has such an attempt been unsuccessful (no story) or even led to mutual reconciliation and understanding between the parties (no story)? How many times have niceness, community, and civilization won out over opposing forces?
(I once talked to a professor of mine at Yale who was accused by a student of sharing racist material. It was a misunderstanding. She resolved it with a single brief email to the student, who was glad to have been heard and had no further concerns. No story.)
I’m also not sure what your recommendation is here. Is it “refuse to communicate with people who espouse beliefs of type X”? Is it “create a centralized set of rules for how EA groups invite speakers”?
If it’s only a tiny nudge, why are we talking about it?
Why is it important for a teacher to give a harsh detention to the first student who challenges their authority, or for countries to defend their borders strictly rather than let it slide if someone encroaches just a few kilometres?
An expectation is being set here. Worse, an expectation has been set that threats of protest are a legitimate way to influence decision-making in our community. You have ceded authority to Slate by obeying their smear-piece on Hanson. Hanson is one of our people, you left him hanging in favour of what Slate thought.
EA people are, IMO, being naïve.
I’m talking about something I considered a tiny nudge because I thought that a lot of people, including people who are pretty influential in communities I care about it, either reacted uncharitably or treated the issue as a much larger deal than it was.
To whom is “you” meant to refer? I don’t work on CEA’s community health team and I’ve never been in contact with EA Munich about any of this.
I also personally disagreed with their decision and (as I noted in the post) thought the Slate piece was really bad. But my disagreeing with them doesn’t mean I can’t try to think through different elements of the situation and see it through the eyes of the people who had to deal with it.
I think the issue here is attempting to unilaterally disarm in a culture war. If your attitude is “let’s through different elements of the situation and see it through the eyes of the people” , and their attitude is “let’s use the most effective memetic superweapons we have access to to destroy everyone we disagree with”, then you’re going to lose and they are going to win.
A stark conclusion of “you’re going to lose” seems like it’s updating too much on a small number of examples.
For every story we hear about someone being cancelled, how many times has such an attempt been unsuccessful (no story) or even led to mutual reconciliation and understanding between the parties (no story)? How many times have niceness, community, and civilization won out over opposing forces?
(I once talked to a professor of mine at Yale who was accused by a student of sharing racist material. It was a misunderstanding. She resolved it with a single brief email to the student, who was glad to have been heard and had no further concerns. No story.)
I’m also not sure what your recommendation is here. Is it “refuse to communicate with people who espouse beliefs of type X”? Is it “create a centralized set of rules for how EA groups invite speakers”?