I donât think they were trying in any way to âcultivate a home for racistsâ.
I think one way you can read this situation is: racists are looking for an âintellectual homeâ in some sense, and since they donât find one in most of the mainstream, they look for places that they can parasitically occupy and use for their own ends. The warning here is: the forecasting community need not only to avoid cultivating a home for racists, but also to proactively defend against racists cultivating a home for themselves. And if the forecasting community canât build walls against this kind of parasitism, then the rationalist community needs to protect themselves from the forecasting community. And if they canât do that, then EA needs to protect itself from the rationalist community.
The core of much of this thinking is that racists (and fascists, the alt-right generally) donât play fair in the marketplace of ideas, and they will manipulate and exploit your welcome if you extend them one. Iâm not sure how well I can defend this idea (might write a top-level comment about it if I can feel confident enough about it), but I think thatâs often what people are getting at with these kinds of concerns.
Yeah, to be clear, I think this is a real dynamic (as Scott Alexander has I think cogently written about here[1]). I think in as much as this is the concern, I am pretty into thinking about the dynamics here, and strongly agree that defenses for this kind of stuff are important.
I also think similar things are true about people on the far left and a bunch of other social clusters with a history of trying to establish themselves in places with attack surface like this.
I think a reasonable thing would definitely be to see whether any specific subculture is growing at a very disproportionate rate in terms of attendance for events like Manifest, as well as to think about good ways of defending against this kind of takeover. My model of Manifest is probably not doing enough modeling about this kind of hostile subculture growth, though my guess is theyâll learn quickly as it becomes a more apparent problem.
The moral of the story is: if youâre against witch-hunts, and you promise to found your own little utopian community where witch-hunts will never happen, your new society will end up consisting of approximately three principled civil libertarians and seven zillion witches. It will be a terrible place to live even if witch-hunts are genuinely wrong.
The warning here is: the forecasting community need not only to avoid cultivating a home for racists, but also to proactively defend against racists cultivating a home for themselves. And if the forecasting community canât build walls against this kind of parasitism, then the rationalist community needs to protect themselves from the forecasting community. And if they canât do that, then EA needs to protect itself from the rationalist community.
I understand what youâre getting at, but would flag that all these categories are pretty coarse.
The âforecasting communityâ sounds similar to the âfinance communityâ. In finance, there are tons of subcommunities. Chicago economists are nothing like wolf-of-wallstreet salesmen.
Similarly, I donât see there being a coherent âforecastingâ community now. Thereâs a bunch of very different clusters of people.
Arguably this conference was more about the âManifold communityâ, which is large and diverse in a similar way to the âReddit communityâ.
Iâm not 100% sure I endorse either, to be fair. Iâve heard this story from many people and I think itâs a useful story to have in mind, but I donât feel like Iâve seen enough concrete evidence and thought enough about alternative explanations to really vouch that itâs right.
I think one way you can read this situation is: racists are looking for an âintellectual homeâ in some sense, and since they donât find one in most of the mainstream, they look for places that they can parasitically occupy and use for their own ends. The warning here is: the forecasting community need not only to avoid cultivating a home for racists, but also to proactively defend against racists cultivating a home for themselves. And if the forecasting community canât build walls against this kind of parasitism, then the rationalist community needs to protect themselves from the forecasting community. And if they canât do that, then EA needs to protect itself from the rationalist community.
The core of much of this thinking is that racists (and fascists, the alt-right generally) donât play fair in the marketplace of ideas, and they will manipulate and exploit your welcome if you extend them one. Iâm not sure how well I can defend this idea (might write a top-level comment about it if I can feel confident enough about it), but I think thatâs often what people are getting at with these kinds of concerns.
Yeah, to be clear, I think this is a real dynamic (as Scott Alexander has I think cogently written about here [1]). I think in as much as this is the concern, I am pretty into thinking about the dynamics here, and strongly agree that defenses for this kind of stuff are important.
I also think similar things are true about people on the far left and a bunch of other social clusters with a history of trying to establish themselves in places with attack surface like this.
I think a reasonable thing would definitely be to see whether any specific subculture is growing at a very disproportionate rate in terms of attendance for events like Manifest, as well as to think about good ways of defending against this kind of takeover. My model of Manifest is probably not doing enough modeling about this kind of hostile subculture growth, though my guess is theyâll learn quickly as it becomes a more apparent problem.
I understand what youâre getting at, but would flag that all these categories are pretty coarse.
The âforecasting communityâ sounds similar to the âfinance communityâ. In finance, there are tons of subcommunities. Chicago economists are nothing like wolf-of-wallstreet salesmen.
Similarly, I donât see there being a coherent âforecastingâ community now. Thereâs a bunch of very different clusters of people.
Arguably this conference was more about the âManifold communityâ, which is large and diverse in a similar way to the âReddit communityâ.
Yeah this is well put. Not sure I endorse, but equally, i donât want forecasting to be a home for racists.
Iâm not 100% sure I endorse either, to be fair. Iâve heard this story from many people and I think itâs a useful story to have in mind, but I donât feel like Iâve seen enough concrete evidence and thought enough about alternative explanations to really vouch that itâs right.