a) Thinking that a speaker shouldn’t be allowed to speak at an event
b) Deciding not to attend an event with a confirmed speaker because you don’t like their ideas
For the first half of your comment I thought you fell into camp b) but not camp a). However your last paragraph seems to imply you fall into both camps.
Personally I would not want a person to speak at an EA event if I thought they were likely to cause reputational damage to EA. In this particular case I (tentatively) don’t think Hanson would have. Sure he’s said some questionable things, but he was being invited to talk about tort law and I fail to see how allowing that signals condoning his questionable ideas. Therefore I would probably have let him speak and anyone who didn’t want to hear him would obviously have been free to not attend.
It seems to me that people often imply that personally finding a speaker beyond the pale means that the speaker shouldn’t be allowed to speak to anyone. I’ve always found this slightly odd.
I think there’s another difference between:
a) Thinking that a speaker shouldn’t be allowed to speak at an event
b) Deciding not to attend an event with a confirmed speaker because you don’t like their ideas
For the first half of your comment I thought you fell into camp b) but not camp a). However your last paragraph seems to imply you fall into both camps.
Personally I would not want a person to speak at an EA event if I thought they were likely to cause reputational damage to EA. In this particular case I (tentatively) don’t think Hanson would have. Sure he’s said some questionable things, but he was being invited to talk about tort law and I fail to see how allowing that signals condoning his questionable ideas. Therefore I would probably have let him speak and anyone who didn’t want to hear him would obviously have been free to not attend.
It seems to me that people often imply that personally finding a speaker beyond the pale means that the speaker shouldn’t be allowed to speak to anyone. I’ve always found this slightly odd.