This is pretty concerning to me (as someone who didn’t attend Manifest but very well might have under other circumstances). I knew Hanania had been at Manifest before and would perhaps be there again, but didn’t realize the event overall had this level of “race science” presence? I hope the Manifest organizers take action to change that for future events, and in general have thought some of Manifold’s recent decisions seemed rather too “edgy”/sensationalist/attention-seeking (not sure of the right word here...) for my taste.
However, this post also rubs me the wrong way a bit because it seems to conflate a bunch of things that I don’t think are appropriate.
To name some quick examples that I don’t intend to get into in detail:
I think the Guardian article was seriously flawed well beyond any issues with Manifest
I think Vassar’s group has been broadly separate from the rationalists for many years now
I don’t much agree with your characterization of rationalists vs. EAs
The other thing that really gets me about this post, though, is your conclusion:
But who knows, maybe next time half the people there will consist of Republicans and the Thielosphere.
I think conflating Republicans, the “Thielosphere” and (implicitly) these “scientific racists” is really bizarre and extreme.
My understanding is that surveys of EA and adjacent communities generally indicate that EA has a very major political skew towards liberal/progressive beliefs. [1] I consider this a serious weakness and potential failure mode for the movement—if we end up becoming just another political thing it could really curtail EA’s potential. The idea of “Republicans” being conflated with this more extreme stuff strikes me as a bad sign.
Quite frankly if someone told me that an EA Global next year was half Republicans/conservative-leaning people, I would consider that likely a major success in terms of diversification and avoiding political skew, and it would significantly increase my optimism for EA as a whole. It seems bizarre to use that sort of thing (admittedly with a far less central event than EA Global) as a “failure condition” here. (And I’m not even a Republican!)
[1] See for instance this post, which found >75% of EAs identified as center-left or left and less than 3% identified as center-right or right! I believe SSC/ACX community surveys also tend to show a strongly left-leaning readership, though with a less dramatic slant.
Thanks Davis Kingsley! I edited my post to include a mention that The Guardian article is flawed, and that Vassar has been more or less excommunicated (I had already replaced the Vassar mention with a link to Saul expanding on Vassar’s attendance).
I guess I am happy to hear that my vibes on rationalists vs. EAs doesn’t ring true to you—I hope you are right on this regard.
I changed the Republicans part into strikethrough, since multiple people have objected to it now, but left the Thielosphere mention as Thiel is tied to Yarvin, who is tied to race stuff. Thiel does a lot of stuff, and what Samo Burja (who, if I understand correctly, is at least partially funded by Thiel) does, for example, doesn’t appear to be very objectionable to me, but overall Thiel does seem like a character whose values are incompatible with EA.
Manifest doesn’t really register as an EA event to me, and the amount of people who I might categorise as EA was maybe 25% of the attendance pool, so I am not sure representative these surveys are of the attendance pool of the event. I have not attended many rationalist events in the Bay, so talk for that either. I suspect there is a major skew towards liberal/progressive beliefs, but with a non-insignificant reactionary minority.
Also, and pardon me if I am mistaken, I am relatively sure (80%+) that I did see you at the venue during Summer Camp or less.online? The things I am talking about were present during those two as well.
I don’t think Davis was at Summer Camp or LessOnline. I would have said hello to him, and also I can’t find anyone on the ticket list for any of the events with the name “Davis”.
(Edit: OOps, I was just looking at the Manifest guest list. He sure was at LessOnline. Sad to have missed him!)
I indeed attended LessOnline for a day, but not Summer Camp or Manifest; while there I didn’t notice the “race science” angle you mention but I was only there for a day and spent a bunch of that time presenting classes/sessions on rationality stuff and then talking to people afterwards, so you probably have a broader sense of what was present during “the events as a whole” than I do.
I think the current political situation in the US is somewhat problematic in the context of inclusion/exclusion, because on the one hand, nearly half of Americans with a party affiliation are Republicans and that MUST include many decent people who would bring good things to the movement, but on the other hand I also do think that the mainstream Republican party, so long as its leading figure is Trump, will remain an anti-democratic menace, as demonstrated by Trump’s behavior around the last election. (Something I think Scott Alexander himself actually agrees with as far as I can tell, ironically.) For Thiel specifically, he is fairly strongly associated with Yarvin as far as I remember, who is clearly a fascist. I am therefore generally against attracting Thiel fans. There are probably some exceptions though: libertarians who admire Thiel for other reasons and are just in denial about how fash-y his views are. Tyler Cowen, who seems ok to me, is probably in that category.
This is pretty concerning to me (as someone who didn’t attend Manifest but very well might have under other circumstances). I knew Hanania had been at Manifest before and would perhaps be there again, but didn’t realize the event overall had this level of “race science” presence? I hope the Manifest organizers take action to change that for future events, and in general have thought some of Manifold’s recent decisions seemed rather too “edgy”/sensationalist/attention-seeking (not sure of the right word here...) for my taste.
However, this post also rubs me the wrong way a bit because it seems to conflate a bunch of things that I don’t think are appropriate.
To name some quick examples that I don’t intend to get into in detail:
I think the Guardian article was seriously flawed well beyond any issues with Manifest
I think Vassar’s group has been broadly separate from the rationalists for many years now
I don’t much agree with your characterization of rationalists vs. EAs
The other thing that really gets me about this post, though, is your conclusion:
I think conflating Republicans, the “Thielosphere” and (implicitly) these “scientific racists” is really bizarre and extreme.
My understanding is that surveys of EA and adjacent communities generally indicate that EA has a very major political skew towards liberal/progressive beliefs. [1] I consider this a serious weakness and potential failure mode for the movement—if we end up becoming just another political thing it could really curtail EA’s potential. The idea of “Republicans” being conflated with this more extreme stuff strikes me as a bad sign.
Quite frankly if someone told me that an EA Global next year was half Republicans/conservative-leaning people, I would consider that likely a major success in terms of diversification and avoiding political skew, and it would significantly increase my optimism for EA as a whole. It seems bizarre to use that sort of thing (admittedly with a far less central event than EA Global) as a “failure condition” here. (And I’m not even a Republican!)
[1] See for instance this post, which found >75% of EAs identified as center-left or left and less than 3% identified as center-right or right! I believe SSC/ACX community surveys also tend to show a strongly left-leaning readership, though with a less dramatic slant.
Thanks Davis Kingsley! I edited my post to include a mention that The Guardian article is flawed, and that Vassar has been more or less excommunicated (I had already replaced the Vassar mention with a link to Saul expanding on Vassar’s attendance).
I guess I am happy to hear that my vibes on rationalists vs. EAs doesn’t ring true to you—I hope you are right on this regard.
I changed the Republicans part into strikethrough, since multiple people have objected to it now, but left the Thielosphere mention as Thiel is tied to Yarvin, who is tied to race stuff. Thiel does a lot of stuff, and what Samo Burja (who, if I understand correctly, is at least partially funded by Thiel) does, for example, doesn’t appear to be very objectionable to me, but overall Thiel does seem like a character whose values are incompatible with EA.
Manifest doesn’t really register as an EA event to me, and the amount of people who I might categorise as EA was maybe 25% of the attendance pool, so I am not sure representative these surveys are of the attendance pool of the event. I have not attended many rationalist events in the Bay, so talk for that either. I suspect there is a major skew towards liberal/progressive beliefs, but with a non-insignificant reactionary minority.
Also, and pardon me if I am mistaken, I am relatively sure (80%+) that I did see you at the venue during Summer Camp or less.online? The things I am talking about were present during those two as well.
I don’t think Davis was at Summer Camp or LessOnline. I would have said hello to him, and also I can’t find anyone on the ticket list for any of the events with the name “Davis”.(Edit: OOps, I was just looking at the Manifest guest list. He sure was at LessOnline. Sad to have missed him!)
Thanks for the edits!
I indeed attended LessOnline for a day, but not Summer Camp or Manifest; while there I didn’t notice the “race science” angle you mention but I was only there for a day and spent a bunch of that time presenting classes/sessions on rationality stuff and then talking to people afterwards, so you probably have a broader sense of what was present during “the events as a whole” than I do.
Depends how you define “strong” for ACX. I think the median was 4.something on a 1 most left to 10 most right scale: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHznuYU9nWqDyNvZ8fQySdWHk5rrj2IdEDMgarf3s34bSPrA/viewanalytics But yes, I’d say ACX has a long history of too much tolerance of the far-right, but most readers are not far-right themselves. (The comments section is generally more right-wing than the lurkers I think.)
I think the current political situation in the US is somewhat problematic in the context of inclusion/exclusion, because on the one hand, nearly half of Americans with a party affiliation are Republicans and that MUST include many decent people who would bring good things to the movement, but on the other hand I also do think that the mainstream Republican party, so long as its leading figure is Trump, will remain an anti-democratic menace, as demonstrated by Trump’s behavior around the last election. (Something I think Scott Alexander himself actually agrees with as far as I can tell, ironically.) For Thiel specifically, he is fairly strongly associated with Yarvin as far as I remember, who is clearly a fascist. I am therefore generally against attracting Thiel fans. There are probably some exceptions though: libertarians who admire Thiel for other reasons and are just in denial about how fash-y his views are. Tyler Cowen, who seems ok to me, is probably in that category.