you want people to believe a certain thing (even if it’s something you yourself sincerely believe), in this case that EA is not racist
it’s about managing impressions and reputations (e.g. EA’s reputation as not racist)
Your initial comment (and also the Bostrom email statement) both struck me as “performative” in how they demonstrated really harsh and absolute condemnation (“absolutely horrifying”, “[no] place in this community”, “recklessly flawed and reprehensible” – granted that you said “if true”, but the tone and other comments seemed to suggest you did think it was true). That tone and manner of speaking as the first thing you say on a topic[1] feels pretty out of place to me within EA, and certainly isn’t what I want in the EA I would design.
Extreme condemnation pattern matches to someone signaling that they too punish the taboo thing (to be clear, I agree that racism should not be tolerated at all), as is seen on the lot of the Internet, and feels pretty toxic. It feels like it’s coming from a place of needing to demonstrate “I/we are not the bad thing”.
So even if your motivation was “do your bit to make it clear that EA isn’t racist”, that does strike me as still political/PR (even if you sincerely believe it)
(And I don’t mean to doubt your upsetness! It is very reasonable to upset if you think something will cause harm to others, and harm to the cause you are dedicating yourself to. Upsetness is real and caring about reputation can come from a really good place.)
I could write more on my feelings about PR/political stuff, because my view is not that it’s outright “bad/evil” or anything, more that caution is required.
IMO, I think this is an area EA needs to be way better in. For better or worse, most of the world runs on persuasion, and PR matters. The nuanced truth doesn’t matter that much for social reality, and EA should ideally be persuasive and control social reality.
For better or worse, most of the world runs on persuasion, and PR matters. The nuanced truth doesn’t matter that much for social reality, and EA should ideally be persuasive and control social reality.
I think the extent to which nuanced truth does not matter to “most of the world” is overstated.
I additionally think that EA should not be optimizing for deceiving people who belong to the class “most of the world”.
Both because it wouldn’t be useful if it worked (realistically most of the world has very little they are offering) and because it wouldn’t work.
I additionally think think that trying to play nitwit political games at or around each hecking other would kill EA as a community and a movement dead, dead, dead.
IMO, I think this is an area EA needs to be way better in. For better or worse, most of the world runs on persuasion, and PR matters. The nuanced truth doesn’t matter that much for social reality, and EA should ideally be persuasive and control social reality.
I think the extent to which nuanced truth does not matter to “most of the world” is overstated.
I additionally think that EA should not be optimizing for deceiving people who belong to the class “most of the world”.
Both because it wouldn’t be useful if it worked (realistically most of the world has very little they are offering) and because it wouldn’t work.
I additionally think think that trying to play nitwit political games at or around each hecking other would kill EA as a community and a movement dead, dead, dead.