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.
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.