I want to believe this, but it’s difficult for me to assess the evidence for or against it very well. Any suggestions?
As with most of us, “the people I know” is not a randomly-selected or representative group. Moreover, presumably many people who hold positions subject to general social stigma will not advocate for their position in front of people they know to be non-receptive. So the personal experience of people whose opposed stance is known will likely underestimate support for Hanania.
Suggestions for assessing the claim, “forum users are only a subset of the EA community”? Or the claim, “most of them [EAs I know] would think it’d be ridiculous to give a platform to someone like Hanania”?
I don’t think there’s great evidence for either claim, unfortunately. For the former, I guess we can look at this and observe that forum use is quite unequal between users, which suggests something.
For the latter, I could survey EAs I know with the question, “Do you think it’d be a good idea to invite Hanania to speak at an event?”. However, even typing that out feels absurd, which perhaps indicates how confident I am that most EAs I know would think it’s a ridiculous idea.
Regarding stigma, my impression is that quite a few people would like to say on the forum, “Giving a platform to Hanania is a ridiculous idea”, but don’t because they worry the forum will not be receptive to this view. I think this is because people perceive there to be a stigma on the forum against anyone who expresses discomfort at seeing people dispassionately discuss whether it’s okay to give a platform to someone like Hanania.
Maybe this stigma is a good thing. I’m not sure. I like what Isa said: “I want to encourage people not to dismiss that ‘wtf’ feeling many people have towards him and other speakers as lacking some kind of intellectual rigor or curiosity about the world”.
Regardless, the votes on my quick take suggest the stigma isn’t as strong as these people perceive it to be.
Actually a third: ~ “the approximate percentage of EAs would think it’d be ridiculous to give a platform to someone like Hanania.” I don’t need convincing that both “Forum users” and “EAs that James Herbert personally knows” are likely unrepresentative samples of EAs as a whole. And I’d still be distressed if “most” EAs thought it ridiculous, but a sizable minority thought it was affirmatively a good idea.
One reason to believe that inviting Hanania is unpopular, though far from definitive, is the data we have on political views of EAs. About 70% of EAs identify as either “left” or “centre-left” in the EA survey. Very few identify as “right” or “centre-right”. I’d assume, cautiously, the most people who identify as “left” or “centre-left” think inviting Hanania was a bad decision, though I can’t be certain of that, as some Hanania supporters do seem to conceptualise themselves as centre-left. But presumably, also, some people who identify as “centre” (and perhaps even “other” or “libertarian”) are also not fans of the decision to invite Hanania.
Thanks, that is a helpful data point. I speculate, though, that EAs may be less likely to fall neatly into a left-right continuum and so (e.g.) the “center-left” respondents could have quite a bit more libertarianism mixed in than the US/UK general center-left population despite identifying more as center-left than libertarian or other.
I know EA Survey space is limited, but a single question on Forum usage (which could be, e.g., no, lurker, >100 karma, 100-999, >1000 / or could be frequency/intensity of use) would be useful in obtaining hard data on the extent to which the active Forum userbase has different characteristics than the EA population as a whole. That might be useful context when something goes haywire on the Forum in a way we think is unrepresentative of the larger population.[Tagging @David_Moss with the question request]
The only statistically significant results are that people who posted or commented on the Forum are more Center-left (41.2% vs 34.9% for non-Forumites), but less Left (27.8% vs 37.8%).
Thanks! The idea that I (as someone who answered “Center”) am that far right for the Forum population feels pretty inconsistent with my lived experience here. I can think of several possible explanations for that, including that I am using a different yardstick than many respondents, that I’m more “left” on certain issues that have been coming up as of late, and that the distribution for highly active commenters/posters is different.
I want to believe this, but it’s difficult for me to assess the evidence for or against it very well. Any suggestions?
As with most of us, “the people I know” is not a randomly-selected or representative group. Moreover, presumably many people who hold positions subject to general social stigma will not advocate for their position in front of people they know to be non-receptive. So the personal experience of people whose opposed stance is known will likely underestimate support for Hanania.
Suggestions for assessing the claim, “forum users are only a subset of the EA community”? Or the claim, “most of them [EAs I know] would think it’d be ridiculous to give a platform to someone like Hanania”?
I don’t think there’s great evidence for either claim, unfortunately. For the former, I guess we can look at this and observe that forum use is quite unequal between users, which suggests something.
For the latter, I could survey EAs I know with the question, “Do you think it’d be a good idea to invite Hanania to speak at an event?”. However, even typing that out feels absurd, which perhaps indicates how confident I am that most EAs I know would think it’s a ridiculous idea.
Regarding stigma, my impression is that quite a few people would like to say on the forum, “Giving a platform to Hanania is a ridiculous idea”, but don’t because they worry the forum will not be receptive to this view. I think this is because people perceive there to be a stigma on the forum against anyone who expresses discomfort at seeing people dispassionately discuss whether it’s okay to give a platform to someone like Hanania.
Maybe this stigma is a good thing. I’m not sure. I like what Isa said: “I want to encourage people not to dismiss that ‘wtf’ feeling many people have towards him and other speakers as lacking some kind of intellectual rigor or curiosity about the world”.
Regardless, the votes on my quick take suggest the stigma isn’t as strong as these people perceive it to be.
Actually a third: ~ “the approximate percentage of EAs would think it’d be ridiculous to give a platform to someone like Hanania.” I don’t need convincing that both “Forum users” and “EAs that James Herbert personally knows” are likely unrepresentative samples of EAs as a whole. And I’d still be distressed if “most” EAs thought it ridiculous, but a sizable minority thought it was affirmatively a good idea.
One reason to believe that inviting Hanania is unpopular, though far from definitive, is the data we have on political views of EAs. About 70% of EAs identify as either “left” or “centre-left” in the EA survey. Very few identify as “right” or “centre-right”. I’d assume, cautiously, the most people who identify as “left” or “centre-left” think inviting Hanania was a bad decision, though I can’t be certain of that, as some Hanania supporters do seem to conceptualise themselves as centre-left. But presumably, also, some people who identify as “centre” (and perhaps even “other” or “libertarian”) are also not fans of the decision to invite Hanania.
Thanks, that is a helpful data point. I speculate, though, that EAs may be less likely to fall neatly into a left-right continuum and so (e.g.) the “center-left” respondents could have quite a bit more libertarianism mixed in than the US/UK general center-left population despite identifying more as center-left than libertarian or other.
I know EA Survey space is limited, but a single question on Forum usage (which could be, e.g., no, lurker, >100 karma, 100-999, >1000 / or could be frequency/intensity of use) would be useful in obtaining hard data on the extent to which the active Forum userbase has different characteristics than the EA population as a whole. That might be useful context when something goes haywire on the Forum in a way we think is unrepresentative of the larger population.[Tagging @David_Moss with the question request]
The only statistically significant results are that people who posted or commented on the Forum are more Center-left (41.2% vs 34.9% for non-Forumites), but less Left (27.8% vs 37.8%).
Thanks! The idea that I (as someone who answered “Center”) am that far right for the Forum population feels pretty inconsistent with my lived experience here. I can think of several possible explanations for that, including that I am using a different yardstick than many respondents, that I’m more “left” on certain issues that have been coming up as of late, and that the distribution for highly active commenters/posters is different.