I think controversial is a totally fair and accurate description of the event given that it was the subject of a very critical story from a major newspaper, which then generated lots of heated commentary online.
No, this argument is importantly invalid.
It was not a “critical story”. It was a hit piece engineered to cause reputational damage. This distinction really matters. (For people who wanted more receipts than my above comment about the adversarial intent, the journalist behind the article now also has sent a cryptic message eerily similar to a death threat(!!) in response to discussion of the article, by what appears to a political rival of theirs. This is not neutral reporting)
The majority of commentary I saw was complaining about the piece being a hit piece. See [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] … . The piece was also community noted on twitter.
The event series LessOnline, Summer Camp, Manifest in total had 500+ guests, 500+ sessions, 70+ invited speakers, across a 10 day stretch. It was a large festival with a ton of different content.
I strongly reject the norm whereby a belligerent writer at a small news outlet can pick out a small slice of a large event, write an adversarial hit piece on it, have people complain about the piece’s journalistic integrity, get some activity as a result; and then have people claim the whole event could be “fairly and accurately” described as controversial(!)
The term is not fair and it is not accurate. Manifest was not controversial; I reject the label. Closest I think is right is “Manifest invited some controversial speakers”. Like this new article from today, for example, which says “the venue’s owners played host to a conference with controversial attendees”. That seems right, and that I encourage a conversation about!
You might want to make your point by appealing to the conference itself, but appealing to the guardian article and its effects really is not a valid argument. For the epistemic health of the community, I think it would be wise to stay way clear of the process that generated that term here.
No. You pointing a finger and yelling “controversial!” doesn’t make something controversial any more than you yelling “racist” at people makes them racist.
I think if the only thing claiming controversy was the article, it might make sense to call that fabricated/false claim by an outsider journalist, but given this post and the fact many people either disapprove or want to avoid Manifest, (and also that Austin writes about consciously deciding to invite people they thought were edgy,) means I think it’s just actually just a reasonable description.
And there’s disanalogy there. Racism is about someone’s beliefs and behaviors, and I can’t change those of someone’s else’s with a label. But controversy means people disagree, disapprove, etc. and someone can make someone else’s belief controversial just by disagreeing with it (or if one disagreement isn’t enough to be controversy, a person contributes to it with their disagreement).
Claiming that Manifest is controversial because of the Guardian reporting—I’ll argue against this pretty strongly
Claiming that Manifest is controversial because of an independent set of good faith accounts from EA forum members—more legit and I can see the case (though I personally disagree)
Very importantly, Garrison’s comment was arguing using 1, not 2.
To perhaps help clarify the discourse, I’ll leave a comment below where people can react to signal “I think the argument for controversy from the Guardian article is invalid; but I do think Manifest should be labeled controversial for other arguments that I think are valid”
“I think the argument for controversy from the Guardian article is invalid; but I do think Manifest should be labeled controversial for other arguments that I think are valid”
The definition of “controversial” is “giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement”. The definition of “controversy” is “prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion”. This unusually active thread is, quite clearly, an example of “prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion”.
I think the really key thing here is the bait-and-switch at play.
Insofar as “controversial” means “heated discussion of subject x”, let’s call that “x-controversial”.
Now the article generates heated discussion because of “being a hit piece”, and so is “hit-piece-controversial”. However, there’s then also heated discussion of racism on the forum, call that “racism-controversial”.
If we then unpack the argument made by Garrison above, it reads as “It is fair and accurate to label Manifest racism-controversial, because of a piece of reporting that was hit-piece controversial”—clearly an invalid argument.
Moreover, I don’t know that the forum discourse was necessarily that heated; and seems like there could be a good faith conversation here about an important topic (for example the original author has been super helpful in engaging with replies, I think). So it also seems lots of “heat” got imported from a different controversy.
Crucially, I think part of the adversarial epistemic playbook of this article, the journalist behind it, as well as your own Tweets and comments supporting it, is playing on ambiguities like this (bundling a bunch of different x-controversial and y-controversial things into one label “controversial”), and then using those as the basis to make sweeping accusations that “organisations [...] cut all ties with Manifold/Lightcone”.
What would you suggest as an alternative title? I don’t feel very strongly about that particular choice of word and would be happy to change the title.
I considered changing the title to “My experience with racism at Manifest 2024”, but that feels like it might invite low quality discussion and would probably be bad.
I’d suggest link searching stories on Twitter to see what their general response is. My Twitter feed was also full of people picking the story apart, but that’s clearly more a reflection of who I follow! Many people were critical (for very good reason, mind you!), but many praised it (see for yourself). There were a ton of mistakes in the article, and I agree that the authors seemed to have a major axe to grind with the communities involved. I’m a journalist myself, and I would be deeply embarrassed to publish a story with so many errors.
I didn’t claim that the event was controversial solely because of the Guardian article — I also mentioned the ensuing conversation, which includes this extremely commented and voted upon post.
And whether you like it or not, The Guardian is one of the largest newspapers in the world, with half of the traffic of the NY Times!
First, this was published in the Guardian US, not the Guardian.
The Guardian US does not have half the traffic of the NYTimes. It has about 15% the traffic, far as I can tell (source). The GuardianUS has 200k Twitter followers; The Guardian has 10M Twitter followers (so 2% of the following).
Second, I scrolled through all the tweets in the link you sent showing “praise”. I see the following:
So I think this just clearly proves my point: the majorty of engagement of this article on Twitter is just commenting on it being a terrible hit piece.
The tiny wave of praise came mostly from folks well known for bad faith attacks on EA, a strange trickle of no-to-low engagement retweets, 1-2 genuine professors, and, well, Shakeel.
My mistake on the guardian US distinction but to call it a “small newspaper” is wildly off base, and for anyone interacting with the piece on social media, the distinction is not legible.
Candidly, I think you’re taking this topic too personally to reason clearly. I think any reasonable person evaluating the online discussion surrounding manifest would see it as “controversial.” Even if you completely excluded the guardian article, this post, Austin’s, and the deluge of comments would be enough to show that.
It’s also no longer feeling like a productive conversation and distracts from the object level questions.
No, this argument is importantly invalid.
It was not a “critical story”. It was a hit piece engineered to cause reputational damage. This distinction really matters. (For people who wanted more receipts than my above comment about the adversarial intent, the journalist behind the article now also has sent a cryptic message eerily similar to a death threat(!!) in response to discussion of the article, by what appears to a political rival of theirs. This is not neutral reporting)
The majority of commentary I saw was complaining about the piece being a hit piece. See [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] … . The piece was also community noted on twitter.
The event series LessOnline, Summer Camp, Manifest in total had 500+ guests, 500+ sessions, 70+ invited speakers, across a 10 day stretch. It was a large festival with a ton of different content.
I strongly reject the norm whereby a belligerent writer at a small news outlet can pick out a small slice of a large event, write an adversarial hit piece on it, have people complain about the piece’s journalistic integrity, get some activity as a result; and then have people claim the whole event could be “fairly and accurately” described as controversial(!)
The term is not fair and it is not accurate. Manifest was not controversial; I reject the label. Closest I think is right is “Manifest invited some controversial speakers”. Like this new article from today, for example, which says “the venue’s owners played host to a conference with controversial attendees”. That seems right, and that I encourage a conversation about!
You might want to make your point by appealing to the conference itself, but appealing to the guardian article and its effects really is not a valid argument. For the epistemic health of the community, I think it would be wise to stay way clear of the process that generated that term here.
Of course Manifest is controversial; the very active and heated debate on this post is evidence of that!
No. You pointing a finger and yelling “controversial!” doesn’t make something controversial any more than you yelling “racist” at people makes them racist.
I think if the only thing claiming controversy was the article, it might make sense to call that fabricated/false claim by an outsider journalist, but given this post and the fact many people either disapprove or want to avoid Manifest, (and also that Austin writes about consciously deciding to invite people they thought were edgy,) means I think it’s just actually just a reasonable description.
And there’s disanalogy there. Racism is about someone’s beliefs and behaviors, and I can’t change those of someone’s else’s with a label. But controversy means people disagree, disapprove, etc. and someone can make someone else’s belief controversial just by disagreeing with it (or if one disagreement isn’t enough to be controversy, a person contributes to it with their disagreement).
To clarify:
Claiming that Manifest is controversial because of the Guardian reporting—I’ll argue against this pretty strongly
Claiming that Manifest is controversial because of an independent set of good faith accounts from EA forum members—more legit and I can see the case (though I personally disagree)
Very importantly, Garrison’s comment was arguing using 1, not 2.
To perhaps help clarify the discourse, I’ll leave a comment below where people can react to signal “I think the argument for controversy from the Guardian article is invalid; but I do think Manifest should be labeled controversial for other arguments that I think are valid”
React to this comment to convey opinions on:
“I think the argument for controversy from the Guardian article is invalid; but I do think Manifest should be labeled controversial for other arguments that I think are valid”
The definition of “controversial” is “giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement”. The definition of “controversy” is “prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion”. This unusually active thread is, quite clearly, an example of “prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion”.
I think the really key thing here is the bait-and-switch at play.
Insofar as “controversial” means “heated discussion of subject x”, let’s call that “x-controversial”.
Now the article generates heated discussion because of “being a hit piece”, and so is “hit-piece-controversial”. However, there’s then also heated discussion of racism on the forum, call that “racism-controversial”.
If we then unpack the argument made by Garrison above, it reads as “It is fair and accurate to label Manifest racism-controversial, because of a piece of reporting that was hit-piece controversial”—clearly an invalid argument.
Moreover, I don’t know that the forum discourse was necessarily that heated; and seems like there could be a good faith conversation here about an important topic (for example the original author has been super helpful in engaging with replies, I think). So it also seems lots of “heat” got imported from a different controversy.
Crucially, I think part of the adversarial epistemic playbook of this article, the journalist behind it, as well as your own Tweets and comments supporting it, is playing on ambiguities like this (bundling a bunch of different x-controversial and y-controversial things into one label “controversial”), and then using those as the basis to make sweeping accusations that “organisations [...] cut all ties with Manifold/Lightcone”.
That is what I’m objecting so strongly against.
What does “controversial” mean, according to you?
I think Shakeel’s cited definition with my clarification here seems good; https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MHenxzydsNgRzSMHY/my-experience-at-the-controversial-manifest-2024?commentId=rB6pq5guAWcsAJrWx
What would you suggest as an alternative title? I don’t feel very strongly about that particular choice of word and would be happy to change the title.
I considered changing the title to “My experience with racism at Manifest 2024”, but that feels like it might invite low quality discussion and would probably be bad.
“My experience at Manifest 2024”
“My experience with controversial speakers at Manifest 2024”
“My perception of HBD discourse at and around Manifest 2024”
I’d suggest link searching stories on Twitter to see what their general response is. My Twitter feed was also full of people picking the story apart, but that’s clearly more a reflection of who I follow! Many people were critical (for very good reason, mind you!), but many praised it (see for yourself). There were a ton of mistakes in the article, and I agree that the authors seemed to have a major axe to grind with the communities involved. I’m a journalist myself, and I would be deeply embarrassed to publish a story with so many errors.
I didn’t claim that the event was controversial solely because of the Guardian article — I also mentioned the ensuing conversation, which includes this extremely commented and voted upon post.
And whether you like it or not, The Guardian is one of the largest newspapers in the world, with half of the traffic of the NY Times!
No, I think this is again importantly wrong.
First, this was published in the Guardian US, not the Guardian.
The Guardian US does not have half the traffic of the NYTimes. It has about 15% the traffic, far as I can tell (source). The GuardianUS has 200k Twitter followers; The Guardian has 10M Twitter followers (so 2% of the following).
Second, I scrolled through all the tweets in the link you sent showing “praise”. I see the following:
Emile Torres with 250 likes.
Timnit Gebru’s new research org retweeting, 27 likes
A professor I don’t know supporting it, 117 likes
Shakeel being “glad to see the press picking it up”, 14 likes
A confusing amount of posts, maybe 10+, which retweet and get 0 likes and no engagement, and 10 that get 1-10 likes
Original tweet by the author of the article, 500 likes
Another journalist praising, 60 likes
You can of course compare this to:
Tweet from a usually EA-critical account with 161 likes, “This is just bad assignment work for whoever wrote this beat.”
Theo Jaffe critical tweet, 144 likes
Robin Hanson with 400 likes, complaining about defamation.
Byrne Hobart critical tweet, 500 likes
Multiple Kelsey tweets, with 300 likes
Habryka’s refutation, 450 likes
Quilette editor critical tweet, 100 likes
So I think this just clearly proves my point: the majorty of engagement of this article on Twitter is just commenting on it being a terrible hit piece.
The tiny wave of praise came mostly from folks well known for bad faith attacks on EA, a strange trickle of no-to-low engagement retweets, 1-2 genuine professors, and, well, Shakeel.
My mistake on the guardian US distinction but to call it a “small newspaper” is wildly off base, and for anyone interacting with the piece on social media, the distinction is not legible.
Candidly, I think you’re taking this topic too personally to reason clearly. I think any reasonable person evaluating the online discussion surrounding manifest would see it as “controversial.” Even if you completely excluded the guardian article, this post, Austin’s, and the deluge of comments would be enough to show that.
It’s also no longer feeling like a productive conversation and distracts from the object level questions.