Thank you for this message Saul Munn. It feels honest and I do notice myself feeling relieved seeing that one of the main organisers isn’t angry at me or something. I’ll make every edit and clarification that you suggested. I would like to point out that I had said that I am unsure if Vassar himself attended the events or not, but I have been told that he did buy a ticket. I believe you that he did not attend, but I will leave a mention about the ticket (unless of course I have been misinformed, but I do get it if you can’t divulge in who specifically has or has not bought a ticket). [Edit: Saul on Vassar attendance]
I do regret using the holocaust example. The example was loosely based on one speaker who appeared to be defending eugenics by saying that the holocaust was actually considered a dysgenic event by top nazi officials. Many other examples I could have used would have narrowed my identity down quite a bit, as many of the sessions had just a handful people in the audience. What I was going for was “even the good parts of a controversial idea are ruined if you have the wrong person talking about it”. I edited this in the text to make it more clear. Please take a look to see if makes more sense now!
I appreciate your invite to grab a coffee or have a video call, but I’m afraid I’m already finding writing about this extremely stressful. If you have a couple of specific questions you’d like to ask me, feel free to send me a DM, but I can’t promise an answer.
I do regret using the holocaust example. The example was loosely based on one speaker who appeared to be defending eugenics by saying that the holocaust was actually considered a dysgenic event by top nazi officials
That sounds like an obviously invalid argument! Now, a) I didn’t attend that talk, b) many people are bad at making arguments, and c) I’ve long suspected that poor reasoning especially is positively correlated with racism (and this is true even after typical range restriction). So it’s certainly possible that the argument they made was literally that bad.
But I think it’s more likely that you misunderstood their argument.
Yeah I have now heard two people say that this was more a historical quibble than some sort of discussion of eugenics in relation to the holocaust. I imagine I could find the actual argument if people thought it was load bearing.
Thank you for this message Saul Munn. It feels honest and I do notice myself feeling relieved seeing that one of the main organisers isn’t angry at me or something. I’ll make every edit and clarification that you suggested. I would like to point out that I had said that I am unsure if Vassar himself attended the events or not, but I have been told that he did buy a ticket. I believe you that he did not attend, but I will leave a mention about the ticket (unless of course I have been misinformed, but I do get it if you can’t divulge in who specifically has or has not bought a ticket). [Edit: Saul on Vassar attendance]
I do regret using the holocaust example. The example was loosely based on one speaker who appeared to be defending eugenics by saying that the holocaust was actually considered a dysgenic event by top nazi officials. Many other examples I could have used would have narrowed my identity down quite a bit, as many of the sessions had just a handful people in the audience. What I was going for was “even the good parts of a controversial idea are ruined if you have the wrong person talking about it”. I edited this in the text to make it more clear. Please take a look to see if makes more sense now!
I appreciate your invite to grab a coffee or have a video call, but I’m afraid I’m already finding writing about this extremely stressful. If you have a couple of specific questions you’d like to ask me, feel free to send me a DM, but I can’t promise an answer.
That sounds like an obviously invalid argument! Now, a) I didn’t attend that talk, b) many people are bad at making arguments, and c) I’ve long suspected that poor reasoning especially is positively correlated with racism (and this is true even after typical range restriction). So it’s certainly possible that the argument they made was literally that bad.
But I think it’s more likely that you misunderstood their argument.
Yeah I have now heard two people say that this was more a historical quibble than some sort of discussion of eugenics in relation to the holocaust. I imagine I could find the actual argument if people thought it was load bearing.
I believe Vassar did buy a ticket to Summer Camp, but it was refunded as he wasn’t allowed into that event.
True, but he was allowed to attend Manifest, even though he didn’t end up coming in the end. Saul on Vassar attendance: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MHenxzydsNgRzSMHY/my-experience-at-the-controversial-manifest-2024?commentId=vWLJo6GQ5sFbbbxch