I provide these examples not to criticize these movements but because I think these historical connections are nearly irrelevant for assessing whether a present-day movement is valid or what it should be working to improve on. (I’ll allow that examining history is essential if we want to adopt the framing of redressing past harms.) What’s more productive is to look at problematic behavior in the present and look at resolving that, and I don’t see what history-based critiques add if we do that.
I think the standard apologetic response for an organization involved in a social movement would be to make a blog post describing these unsavory historical precedents and then calling for more action for diversity, equity, and inclusion. But that might not be a good strategy for longtermist organizations. The Tuskegee study is so well-known in the United States as an example of medical racism that it doesn’t cost anything for a hospital to write a blog post about it, while the situation isn’t analogous for longtermism.
I think that ignoring historical precedent is exactly what Scott was pointing out we aren’t doing in his post, and I think the vast majority of EAs think it would be a mistake to do so now.
My point was that we’re aware of the skulls, and cautious. Your response seems to be “who cares about the skulls, that was the past. I’m sure we can do better now.” And coming from someone who is involved in EA, hearing that view from people interested in changing the world really, really worries me—because we have lots of evidence from studies of organizational decision making and policy that ignoring what went wrong in the past is a way to fail now and in the future.
I have a hard time seeing longtermism being at risk for embracing eugenics or racism. But it might be interesting to look at the general principles for why people in the past advocated eugenics or racism—perhaps, insufficient respect or individual autonomy—and try to learn from those more general lessons. Is that what you’re arguing for in your post?
Yes. The ways that various movements have gone wrong certainly differs, and despite the criticism related to race, which I do think is worth addressing, I’m not primarily worried that longtermists will end up repeating specific failure modes—different movements fail differently.
It seems pretty bizarre to me to say that these historical examples are not at all relevant for evaluating present day social movements. I think it’s incredibly important that socialists, for example, reflect on why various historical folks and states acting in the name of socialism caused mass death and suffering, and likewise for any social movement look at it’s past mistakes, harms, etc., and try to reevaluate their goals in light of that.
To me, the examples you give just emphasize the post’s point — I think it would be hard to find someone who did a lot of thinking on socialist topics who thought that there were no lessons or belief changes should happen after human rights abuses in the Soviet Union were revealed. And if someone didn’t think there were lessons there for how to approach making the world better today, that it would seem completely unreasonable.
I also don’t think the original post was asking longtermist orgs to make blog posts calling for action on diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think it was doing something more like asking longtermists to genuinely reflect on whether or not unsavory aspects of the intellectual movement’s history are shaping the space today, etc.
I think most social movements can be traced to some sort of unsavory historical precedent. For example:
Feminism and eugenics
Socialism and human rights violations
Anti-racism and the 1804 Haiti massacre
Racial equality and Black supremacy
Abolitionism and massacre
Anti-imperialism and massacre
Egalitarianism and massacre
I provide these examples not to criticize these movements but because I think these historical connections are nearly irrelevant for assessing whether a present-day movement is valid or what it should be working to improve on. (I’ll allow that examining history is essential if we want to adopt the framing of redressing past harms.) What’s more productive is to look at problematic behavior in the present and look at resolving that, and I don’t see what history-based critiques add if we do that.
I think the standard apologetic response for an organization involved in a social movement would be to make a blog post describing these unsavory historical precedents and then calling for more action for diversity, equity, and inclusion. But that might not be a good strategy for longtermist organizations. The Tuskegee study is so well-known in the United States as an example of medical racism that it doesn’t cost anything for a hospital to write a blog post about it, while the situation isn’t analogous for longtermism.
I think that ignoring historical precedent is exactly what Scott was pointing out we aren’t doing in his post, and I think the vast majority of EAs think it would be a mistake to do so now.
My point was that we’re aware of the skulls, and cautious. Your response seems to be “who cares about the skulls, that was the past. I’m sure we can do better now.” And coming from someone who is involved in EA, hearing that view from people interested in changing the world really, really worries me—because we have lots of evidence from studies of organizational decision making and policy that ignoring what went wrong in the past is a way to fail now and in the future.
I have a hard time seeing longtermism being at risk for embracing eugenics or racism. But it might be interesting to look at the general principles for why people in the past advocated eugenics or racism—perhaps, insufficient respect or individual autonomy—and try to learn from those more general lessons. Is that what you’re arguing for in your post?
Yes. The ways that various movements have gone wrong certainly differs, and despite the criticism related to race, which I do think is worth addressing, I’m not primarily worried that longtermists will end up repeating specific failure modes—different movements fail differently.
It seems pretty bizarre to me to say that these historical examples are not at all relevant for evaluating present day social movements. I think it’s incredibly important that socialists, for example, reflect on why various historical folks and states acting in the name of socialism caused mass death and suffering, and likewise for any social movement look at it’s past mistakes, harms, etc., and try to reevaluate their goals in light of that.
To me, the examples you give just emphasize the post’s point — I think it would be hard to find someone who did a lot of thinking on socialist topics who thought that there were no lessons or belief changes should happen after human rights abuses in the Soviet Union were revealed. And if someone didn’t think there were lessons there for how to approach making the world better today, that it would seem completely unreasonable.
I also don’t think the original post was asking longtermist orgs to make blog posts calling for action on diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think it was doing something more like asking longtermists to genuinely reflect on whether or not unsavory aspects of the intellectual movement’s history are shaping the space today, etc.