I think many people are overestimating the reputational risks here.
Firstly, cancel culture is past its peak. Secondly, for better or worse, the Overton window is largely than it was previously (I expect this process to continue further). Thirdly, many of the folk who play the ‘guilt by association game’ already hate us and already have enough ammunition that we aren’t going to change their minds. Fourthly, the folk who play that game most strongly mostly wouldn’t make good community members anyway. Fifthly, the more you bend in relation to reputational attacks or to ward them off, the more that people see you as a juicy target.
For that reason, I don’t think we should prioritise worries about reputational risks nearly as much as you think (in fact, posts like this seem to cause more reputational risks than they potentially solve by implicitly accepting the frame that EA and LightCone and Manifold shouldn’t be regarded as separate entities, but all mashed together).
I strongly believe that we should allow each community to pursue its own path. Effective Altruism cares primarily about impact, rationalism primarily about strong epistemics and Manifold about accurate prediction markets. This will naturally lead to divergent preferences about who is acceptable to platform; and I’d much rather embrace the divergence than engage in in-fighting over which community gets to set the norms.
Even though there is some overlap between the communities (myself included), I really think we should push back against conflating the two communities. We should also push to further distinguish Lightcone from Lightcone venue hirers. Collapsing these associations doesn’t gives an unfair and inaccurate idea of responsibility for particular decisions.
I think many people are overestimating the reputational risks here.
Firstly, cancel culture is past its peak. Secondly, for better or worse, the Overton window is largely than it was previously (I expect this process to continue further). Thirdly, many of the folk who play the ‘guilt by association game’ already hate us and already have enough ammunition that we aren’t going to change their minds. Fourthly, the folk who play that game most strongly mostly wouldn’t make good community members anyway. Fifthly, the more you bend in relation to reputational attacks or to ward them off, the more that people see you as a juicy target.
For that reason, I don’t think we should prioritise worries about reputational risks nearly as much as you think (in fact, posts like this seem to cause more reputational risks than they potentially solve by implicitly accepting the frame that EA and LightCone and Manifold shouldn’t be regarded as separate entities, but all mashed together).
I strongly believe that we should allow each community to pursue its own path. Effective Altruism cares primarily about impact, rationalism primarily about strong epistemics and Manifold about accurate prediction markets. This will naturally lead to divergent preferences about who is acceptable to platform; and I’d much rather embrace the divergence than engage in in-fighting over which community gets to set the norms.
Even though there is some overlap between the communities (myself included), I really think we should push back against conflating the two communities. We should also push to further distinguish Lightcone from Lightcone venue hirers. Collapsing these associations doesn’t gives an unfair and inaccurate idea of responsibility for particular decisions.