I want to be in a movement or community where people hold their heads up, say what they think is true, speak and listen freely, and bother to act on principles worth defending / to attend to aspects of reputation they actually care about, but not to worry about PR as such.
It’s somehow hard for me to read the OP and the comments below it without feeling like I should cower in fear and try to avoid social attack. I hope we don’t anyhow. (TBF, lots of the comments actively make this better, and I appreciate that!)
(Alternately put: a culture of truthseeking seems really important if we want to do actual good, and not just think we’re doing good or gain careers by being associated with the idea of do-gooding or something. I find it actively difficult to remember I wish to live by truth-seeking principles/culture while reading these threads somehow. I want a counterweight to make it easier.)
Fwiw, a big reason for posting under a throwaway is the fear of a social attack. I don’t want to make enemies out of people, especially if some of them I have only briefly interacted with. Some people are bound to have had a different experience from mine, and will be tempted to discard what I write about out of hand. Some can’t relate to my experience due to mere chance with regards to who they’ve interacted with during these events, and some might not be able to relate due to being very generous (or perhaps even naive) in their interpretation of others.
I do not think I am encouraging changing things just for PR reasons. I think it is not only instrumentally bad move towards becoming a more edgy or racist community, but that is also bad in absolute terms. I am not sure if what you are trying to say is “if people think [insert an HBD belief here] is true, they should feel comfortable saying so in this community”, and I hope I am not misrepresenting you by responding this way—let me know if you’d like me to delete this last paragraph and I’d be happy to do so.
It’s concerning and requires clarification that people in this forum are so quick to link racism to truthseekingness. What is the basis for this connection? Have you evaluated racist assertions and found them to be truthful?
One might argue that a lack of censorship, even of false ideas, is crucial for a community committed to truth-seeking, and that people should be free to express themselves without social consequences. However, it’s likely you would set limits. Imagine someone was inexplicably fixated on asserting that your children specifically were genetically inferior and should be deported, posting this repeatedly on Twitter/X. What benefit would the community gain by including them in events?
Really agree with this take. Ultimately, I get the impression that there seems to be a growing divide in EA between people who prioritize more truthseeking and those who prioritize better PR and kindness. And these are complex topics with difficult trade-offs that each has to navigate and establish on a personal basis.
As elsewhere, more edgy does not equal more truth-seeking. By favouring a more homogenous and more exclusionary conference, Manifest closes off important sources of ideas. And based on the intellectual calibre of the edgier speakers, they are not thereby gaining a compensatory stream of ideas. It is not a dichotomy between truth seeking and kindness—both are achievable.
I agree with that, and that our goal should be to achieve both, but reality being what it is, there are going to be times when truth-seeking and kindness confront each other, and one has to make a trade-off. Ultimately, I choose truth-seeking in case of conflict, even weighing in the negative effects it can generate. But to each his own.
I wouldn’t frame it as prioritizing truth vs kindness.
I don’t see it as a kindness to shun people based on who they hang out with, to try to control what EAs can listen to or who they can talk to, or to encourage people to avoid controversial ideas/people.
I think this hurts truth but it also hurts people.
I am not being precise with language, but what I meant was something like sometimes you know that stating some truths, or merely accepting the possibility of some things being true and being willing to explore them and publicize them no matter the consequences might have negative consequences, like being hurtful and/or offending to people, frequently for good, pragmatic and historical reasons. Prioritizing not to harm would feel like a perfectly valid, utilitarian consideration, even if I disagree with it trumping all others. In Haidt’s moral framework terms, one can prioritize Care/Harm versus Liberty/Oppression. Myself, I have a deontological, quasi-religious belief in truth and truth-seeking as an end in itself.
I want to be in a movement or community where people hold their heads up, say what they think is true, speak and listen freely, and bother to act on principles worth defending / to attend to aspects of reputation they actually care about, but not to worry about PR as such.
It’s somehow hard for me to read the OP and the comments below it without feeling like I should cower in fear and try to avoid social attack. I hope we don’t anyhow. (TBF, lots of the comments actively make this better, and I appreciate that!)
(Alternately put: a culture of truthseeking seems really important if we want to do actual good, and not just think we’re doing good or gain careers by being associated with the idea of do-gooding or something. I find it actively difficult to remember I wish to live by truth-seeking principles/culture while reading these threads somehow. I want a counterweight to make it easier.)
Fwiw, a big reason for posting under a throwaway is the fear of a social attack. I don’t want to make enemies out of people, especially if some of them I have only briefly interacted with. Some people are bound to have had a different experience from mine, and will be tempted to discard what I write about out of hand. Some can’t relate to my experience due to mere chance with regards to who they’ve interacted with during these events, and some might not be able to relate due to being very generous (or perhaps even naive) in their interpretation of others.
I do not think I am encouraging changing things just for PR reasons. I think it is not only instrumentally bad move towards becoming a more edgy or racist community, but that is also bad in absolute terms. I am not sure if what you are trying to say is “if people think [insert an HBD belief here] is true, they should feel comfortable saying so in this community”, and I hope I am not misrepresenting you by responding this way—let me know if you’d like me to delete this last paragraph and I’d be happy to do so.
It’s concerning and requires clarification that people in this forum are so quick to link racism to truthseekingness. What is the basis for this connection? Have you evaluated racist assertions and found them to be truthful?
One might argue that a lack of censorship, even of false ideas, is crucial for a community committed to truth-seeking, and that people should be free to express themselves without social consequences. However, it’s likely you would set limits. Imagine someone was inexplicably fixated on asserting that your children specifically were genetically inferior and should be deported, posting this repeatedly on Twitter/X. What benefit would the community gain by including them in events?
Really agree with this take. Ultimately, I get the impression that there seems to be a growing divide in EA between people who prioritize more truthseeking and those who prioritize better PR and kindness. And these are complex topics with difficult trade-offs that each has to navigate and establish on a personal basis.
As elsewhere, more edgy does not equal more truth-seeking. By favouring a more homogenous and more exclusionary conference, Manifest closes off important sources of ideas. And based on the intellectual calibre of the edgier speakers, they are not thereby gaining a compensatory stream of ideas. It is not a dichotomy between truth seeking and kindness—both are achievable.
I agree with that, and that our goal should be to achieve both, but reality being what it is, there are going to be times when truth-seeking and kindness confront each other, and one has to make a trade-off. Ultimately, I choose truth-seeking in case of conflict, even weighing in the negative effects it can generate. But to each his own.
I wouldn’t frame it as prioritizing truth vs kindness.
I don’t see it as a kindness to shun people based on who they hang out with, to try to control what EAs can listen to or who they can talk to, or to encourage people to avoid controversial ideas/people.
I think this hurts truth but it also hurts people.
I am not being precise with language, but what I meant was something like sometimes you know that stating some truths, or merely accepting the possibility of some things being true and being willing to explore them and publicize them no matter the consequences might have negative consequences, like being hurtful and/or offending to people, frequently for good, pragmatic and historical reasons. Prioritizing not to harm would feel like a perfectly valid, utilitarian consideration, even if I disagree with it trumping all others. In Haidt’s moral framework terms, one can prioritize Care/Harm versus Liberty/Oppression. Myself, I have a deontological, quasi-religious belief in truth and truth-seeking as an end in itself.