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.
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