In early 2020, people were reluctant to warn about covid-19 because it could be taken as justification for anti-chinese racism.
Hanania writes:
One path [EA] can take is to be folded into the Democratic coalition. It’ll have to temper its rougher edges, which means purging individuals for magic words, knowing when not to take an argument to its logical conclusion, compromising on free speech, more peer review and fewer disagreeable autodidacts, and being unwilling to engage with other individuals and communities that are too non-conformist to avoid having any heretical strains.
It seems likely to me that if EA were “folded into the Democratic coalition” in this way, we would’ve been much slower to recognize the importance of COVID-19.
It’s only with the benefit of hindsight that we know COVID-19 was going to be a huge pandemic. A question to think about: What’s the COVID-19 pandemic probability such that we should be indifferent between discussing the virus and staying silent—the pandemic probability such that the expected downside from anti-Chinese racism equals the expected upside from pandemic preparedness?
IMO the benefit of EA getting folded into the Democratic coalition is limited, because people who think it’s racist to discuss low-probability pandemics are already well-served by existing groups in the Democratic coalition. EA shouldn’t try to be all things to all people. It’s OK to leave EA and switch to antiracism advocacy if that’s the cause that really speaks to you.
I don’t think EA should be folded into a democratic coalition either, but this comment is a massive strawman.
Being in a coalition does not mean agreeing with the majority of the coalition at every time. There is in fact a huge degree of disagreement within said coalition, as becomes obvious around primary time.
Nobody was kicked out of the democratic party for being concerned about covid-19. At worst, there was mild social pressure within the coalition on the subject, which I hope EA would have been able to resist.
Almost every “bad” thing said here about “Woke EA” sounds good to me
So I quoted a particular “bad” thing that Hanania brought up, and explain why I thought it was, in fact, bad.
I’m unclear on who you believe to be strawmanning who. My best guess is that you believe Hanania to be strawmanning the idea of “being folded into the Democratic coalition”. However, that’s not much of a strawman—it’s a phrase he invented, and he immediately explains what he meant by it.
I’m not reassured by your observation that disagreements within the Democratic coalition only tend to be apparent around primary time.
Nor am I reassured by your “Nobody was kicked out” observation—being kicked out is often the result of ignoring accumulated “mild social pressure”.
Again, benefit of hindsight—suppose COVID-19 turned out to be a dud, and EA suffers the racism accusation without any corresponding vindication. How many dud pandemics before enough “mild social pressure” has accumulated that we are de facto no longer part of the coalition? My suspicion is less than ten—we’d get an image as “those racists who are always warning about pandemics from other countries”. So if EAs were significantly motivated by staying in the coalition, I think we could easily end up paying too little attention to pandemics.
I certainly hope EA would’ve been able to resist such social pressure if we were part of the coalition. But pro-woke EAs make me nervous, because they aren’t providing a blueprint for when and how such social pressure should be resisted—and I observe that social pressure has a tendency to create self-reinforcing spirals.
According to my model, being part of a political coalition means giving something up. I think anyone who wants EA to join a political coalition should explain what, specifically, EA should give up relative to a pure focus on doing the most good, and why this is a worthwhile sacrifice. I found your comment a bit frustrating because you seem to imply that joining a coalition is cost-free, and I don’t think that’s true.
I’m not reassured by your observation that disagreements within the Democratic coalition only tend to be apparent around primary time.
Okay, now you’re strawmanning me. Disagreements within the democratic coalition are continuous, they are simply most fervent and visible during primary season when the impacts are greatest.
If you’re in the democratic coalition, being called racist on a flimsy basis by people on twitter is actually fairly inevitable. I can’t think of a single politician or faction this hasn’t happened to. And yet somehow, they keep on trucking.
The actual response to warning about the pandemic would be a handful of twitter weirdos calling you racist, most people going “that seems unreasonable”, and everyone continuing on with their lives. this is mainly because warning about pandemics isn’t actually racist.
I still don’t think being in the coalition is a good idea, but the portrayal here makes it seem like being loosely affiliated with a political movement makes you a dogmatic zombie.
If you’re in the democratic coalition, being called racist on a flimsy basis by people on twitter is actually fairly inevitable. I can’t think of a single politician or faction this hasn’t happened to. And yet somehow, they keep on trucking.
Do you think this is an incentive that people don’t respond to?
The actual response to warning about the pandemic would be a handful of twitter weirdos calling you racist, most people going “that seems unreasonable”, and everyone continuing on with their lives. this is mainly because warning about pandemics isn’t actually racist.
See this search of pandemic news articles prior to March 2020. You can see lots of news outlets downplaying the virus in favor of racism concerns.
I’m curious just how many people reacted to these articles at the time by saying “that seems unreasonable”. I don’t remember much of anyone publicly reacting that way. This would be a good test of the degree to which “being called a racist” is an incentive people respond to, if you can find a number of prominent examples of people saying “that seems unreasonable” within the Democratic coalition.
My model is that if the coronavirus caused just as much damage, but in some complicated semi-hidden way that wasn’t directly attributable to a pandemic, people would still be just as focused on the racism aspect of coronavirus discussion.
I still don’t think being in the coalition is a good idea, but the portrayal here makes it seem like being loosely affiliated with a political movement makes you a dogmatic zombie.
As far as I can tell, Peter Thiel went from being an interesting and intelligent person I had a ton of respect for (he donated lots to MIRI and gave a couple of EA summit keynotes) to a dogmatic zombie, primarily due to loose affiliation with a couple of political movements (neoreaction and the Republican party).
If someone who’s famously contrarian and independently wealthy can’t resist the pull of polarization, I’m not betting on anybody.
Who fears the left? Strangely, the main answer seems to be: leftists. I talk to a wide range of people in academia about left-wing anger and the fear it sustains. As you’d expect, the people who are most outraged by the climate of fear are non-leftists. But the people who personally experience the most fear are leftists themselves. In my private conversations, some of the most boring milquetoast technocratic leftist scholars have grimly foretold that somehow, someday, a mob of their own ideological persuasion will come for them.
I’ll only answer with a small point: I’m from a different country, and we don’t have a “Democratic coalition”, neither do we have racism against Chinese people because there are barely any Chinese people here (hence, we didn’t have this pressure against making a big deal of COVID). I don’t see EA through an American perspective, and mostly ignore phrases like that.
Still, generally speaking, I would side with US democrats on many things, and am sure the mild disagreements needed wouldn’t be an actual problem. Progressivism is perceived by conservatives as something that creates extreme homogeneity of thought, but that doesn’t really seem the case to me.
dspeyer brought up an interesting example in another thread:
Hanania writes:
It seems likely to me that if EA were “folded into the Democratic coalition” in this way, we would’ve been much slower to recognize the importance of COVID-19.
It’s only with the benefit of hindsight that we know COVID-19 was going to be a huge pandemic. A question to think about: What’s the COVID-19 pandemic probability such that we should be indifferent between discussing the virus and staying silent—the pandemic probability such that the expected downside from anti-Chinese racism equals the expected upside from pandemic preparedness?
IMO the benefit of EA getting folded into the Democratic coalition is limited, because people who think it’s racist to discuss low-probability pandemics are already well-served by existing groups in the Democratic coalition. EA shouldn’t try to be all things to all people. It’s OK to leave EA and switch to antiracism advocacy if that’s the cause that really speaks to you.
I don’t think EA should be folded into a democratic coalition either, but this comment is a massive strawman.
Being in a coalition does not mean agreeing with the majority of the coalition at every time. There is in fact a huge degree of disagreement within said coalition, as becomes obvious around primary time.
Nobody was kicked out of the democratic party for being concerned about covid-19. At worst, there was mild social pressure within the coalition on the subject, which I hope EA would have been able to resist.
Guy said:
So I quoted a particular “bad” thing that Hanania brought up, and explain why I thought it was, in fact, bad.
I’m unclear on who you believe to be strawmanning who. My best guess is that you believe Hanania to be strawmanning the idea of “being folded into the Democratic coalition”. However, that’s not much of a strawman—it’s a phrase he invented, and he immediately explains what he meant by it.
I’m not reassured by your observation that disagreements within the Democratic coalition only tend to be apparent around primary time.
Nor am I reassured by your “Nobody was kicked out” observation—being kicked out is often the result of ignoring accumulated “mild social pressure”.
Again, benefit of hindsight—suppose COVID-19 turned out to be a dud, and EA suffers the racism accusation without any corresponding vindication. How many dud pandemics before enough “mild social pressure” has accumulated that we are de facto no longer part of the coalition? My suspicion is less than ten—we’d get an image as “those racists who are always warning about pandemics from other countries”. So if EAs were significantly motivated by staying in the coalition, I think we could easily end up paying too little attention to pandemics.
I certainly hope EA would’ve been able to resist such social pressure if we were part of the coalition. But pro-woke EAs make me nervous, because they aren’t providing a blueprint for when and how such social pressure should be resisted—and I observe that social pressure has a tendency to create self-reinforcing spirals.
According to my model, being part of a political coalition means giving something up. I think anyone who wants EA to join a political coalition should explain what, specifically, EA should give up relative to a pure focus on doing the most good, and why this is a worthwhile sacrifice. I found your comment a bit frustrating because you seem to imply that joining a coalition is cost-free, and I don’t think that’s true.
Okay, now you’re strawmanning me. Disagreements within the democratic coalition are continuous, they are simply most fervent and visible during primary season when the impacts are greatest.
If you’re in the democratic coalition, being called racist on a flimsy basis by people on twitter is actually fairly inevitable. I can’t think of a single politician or faction this hasn’t happened to. And yet somehow, they keep on trucking.
The actual response to warning about the pandemic would be a handful of twitter weirdos calling you racist, most people going “that seems unreasonable”, and everyone continuing on with their lives. this is mainly because warning about pandemics isn’t actually racist.
I still don’t think being in the coalition is a good idea, but the portrayal here makes it seem like being loosely affiliated with a political movement makes you a dogmatic zombie.
Do you think this is an incentive that people don’t respond to?
See this search of pandemic news articles prior to March 2020. You can see lots of news outlets downplaying the virus in favor of racism concerns.
I’m curious just how many people reacted to these articles at the time by saying “that seems unreasonable”. I don’t remember much of anyone publicly reacting that way. This would be a good test of the degree to which “being called a racist” is an incentive people respond to, if you can find a number of prominent examples of people saying “that seems unreasonable” within the Democratic coalition.
My model is that if the coronavirus caused just as much damage, but in some complicated semi-hidden way that wasn’t directly attributable to a pandemic, people would still be just as focused on the racism aspect of coronavirus discussion.
As far as I can tell, Peter Thiel went from being an interesting and intelligent person I had a ton of respect for (he donated lots to MIRI and gave a couple of EA summit keynotes) to a dogmatic zombie, primarily due to loose affiliation with a couple of political movements (neoreaction and the Republican party).
If someone who’s famously contrarian and independently wealthy can’t resist the pull of polarization, I’m not betting on anybody.
Edit: Here’s something from Bryan Caplan
I’ll only answer with a small point: I’m from a different country, and we don’t have a “Democratic coalition”, neither do we have racism against Chinese people because there are barely any Chinese people here (hence, we didn’t have this pressure against making a big deal of COVID). I don’t see EA through an American perspective, and mostly ignore phrases like that.
Still, generally speaking, I would side with US democrats on many things, and am sure the mild disagreements needed wouldn’t be an actual problem. Progressivism is perceived by conservatives as something that creates extreme homogeneity of thought, but that doesn’t really seem the case to me.
You say you happen to already agree on most things, perhaps you therefore wouldn’t experience much pressure.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220407033207/https://www.canceledpeople.com/cancelations