If, say, a philosophy professor wants to express opinions on infanticide, that is covered under academic freedom. If they want to encourage students to drink bleach, saying it is good for their health, that is not covered.
We can and should have a strong standard of academic freedom for relevant, on-topic contributions. But race science is off topic and irrelevant to EA. It’s closer to spam. Should the forum have no spam filter and rely on community members to downvote posts as the method of spam control?
You elsewhere link to this post as a “clear example of a post that would be banned under the rules”. That post includes the following argument:
People act like genetic engineering would be some sort of horrifying mad science project to create freakish mutant supermen who can shoot acid out of their eyes. But I would be pretty happy if it could just make everyone do as well as Ashkenazi Jews. The Ashkenazim I know are mostly well-off, well-educated, and live decent lives. If genetic engineering could give those advantages to everyone, it would easily qualify as the most important piece of social progress in history, even before we started giving people the ability to shoot acid out of their eyes.
The post concludes, “EA’s existing taboos are preventing it from answering questions like these, and as new taboos are accepted, the effectiveness of the movement will continue to wain.”
You may well judge this to be wrong, as a substantive matter. But I don’t understand how anyone could seriously claim that this is “off topic and irrelevant to EA.” (The effectiveness of the movement is obviously a matter of relevant concern for EA.) People’s tendency to dishonestly smuggle substantive judgments under putatively procedural grounds is precisely why I’m so suspicious of such calls for censorship.
As an Ashkenazi Jew myself, saying “we’d like to make everyone like Ashkenazi Jews” feels just like a mirror image of Nazism that very clearly should not appear on the forum
I’m not making any claims either way about that. I’m just pointing out (contra Matthew) that it is clearly not “irrelevant spam”. Your objections are substantive, not procedural. Folks who want to censor views they find offensive should be honest about what they’re doing, not pretend that they’re just filtering out viagra ads.
I think it is irrelevant, and in every context where I’ve seen it presented as ‘on topic’ in EA, the connection between it and any positive impact was simplistic to the point of being imaginary, while at the same time promoting dangerous views—just like in the post you quoted.
Topical relevance is independent of the position one takes on a topic, so the rule you’re suggesting also implies that condemnations of race science are spam and should be deleted. (I think I’d be fine with a consistently applied rule of that form. But it’s clearly not the OP’s position.)
Academic freedom is not and has never been meant to protect professors on topics that have no relevance to their discipline: “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.”
If, say, a philosophy professor wants to express opinions on infanticide, that is covered under academic freedom. If they want to encourage students to drink bleach, saying it is good for their health, that is not covered.
We can and should have a strong standard of academic freedom for relevant, on-topic contributions. But race science is off topic and irrelevant to EA. It’s closer to spam. Should the forum have no spam filter and rely on community members to downvote posts as the method of spam control?
You elsewhere link to this post as a “clear example of a post that would be banned under the rules”. That post includes the following argument:
The post concludes, “EA’s existing taboos are preventing it from answering questions like these, and as new taboos are accepted, the effectiveness of the movement will continue to wain.”
You may well judge this to be wrong, as a substantive matter. But I don’t understand how anyone could seriously claim that this is “off topic and irrelevant to EA.” (The effectiveness of the movement is obviously a matter of relevant concern for EA.) People’s tendency to dishonestly smuggle substantive judgments under putatively procedural grounds is precisely why I’m so suspicious of such calls for censorship.
As an Ashkenazi Jew myself, saying “we’d like to make everyone like Ashkenazi Jews” feels just like a mirror image of Nazism that very clearly should not appear on the forum
I’m not making any claims either way about that. I’m just pointing out (contra Matthew) that it is clearly not “irrelevant spam”. Your objections are substantive, not procedural. Folks who want to censor views they find offensive should be honest about what they’re doing, not pretend that they’re just filtering out viagra ads.
I think it is irrelevant, and in every context where I’ve seen it presented as ‘on topic’ in EA, the connection between it and any positive impact was simplistic to the point of being imaginary, while at the same time promoting dangerous views—just like in the post you quoted.
Topical relevance is independent of the position one takes on a topic, so the rule you’re suggesting also implies that condemnations of race science are spam and should be deleted. (I think I’d be fine with a consistently applied rule of that form. But it’s clearly not the OP’s position.)