“Group differences in IQ is right around the corner, and if you’re going to maintain any kind of commitment to rationalism you’re going to have to either stop yourself before getting on that train or take it to its logical destination.”
Yikes.
Eugenics or “human biodiversity” isn’t a new idea and is incredibly toxic to most people. It has no place in the EA movement. If you let it anywhere near the movement, the only people that will remain are contrarian right-wingers that care more about being edgy and provocative than helping people or other animals. And also those who enjoy hanging around contrarian right-wingers (maybe they find them endearing or something? idk).
Speaking as a group leader for a local EA group, if someone tried to start a conversation on HBD and its assumed “logical destination” at a group meetup, I would immediately and permanently ban them from the group. It is incredibly hard to bring in different perspectives that lead to good decisions and better normative ethics. One conversation like that is enough to permanently lose many people I want in my group. If banning a few disagreeable right-wing “rationalists” who like to talk about HBD means lots of other people stay, I’ll gladly take that trade-off.
For those who think a ban is too harsh: go read the article linked to in this post, read several other top posts from the author, and read the comments from the blogs followers.
There are plenty of contributions right-wing ideas and disagreeable rationalists can make to the EA movement. Many of the movements best ideas come from those who identify that way. Just not the kind demonstrated in this post.
[EDIT] I’m puzzled by the disagreement votes, so adding some more context:
In the linked blog post, Richard Hanania writes “A free market in ideas is like a free market in any other good or service. It ends up with Asian and white men on top who are there because they’re simply better than everyone else. Movements uncomfortable with this naturally get swallowed by wokeness.”
I think it’s pretty clear that what Richard Hanania and the post author mean when they say “anti-woke” is that they think EA should entertain operationalized racism and sexism. Anti-racism and anti-sexism are commitments wildly shared by EA community builders. If being anti-racist and anti-sexist is “woke”, the majority of EA has been “woke” for a long time and does better because of it.
“Eugenics or ‘human biodiversity’ isn’t a new idea and is incredibly toxic to most people.”
>right, calling an idea “toxic” is literally the same thing as calling it “taboo.” Hanania argues rationalism is the belief that “fewer topics...should be considered taboo...and not subject to cost-benefit anaysis.”
It sounds like your argument isn’t explicitly saying that you consider this topic off limits personally, but rather too many others view it as taboo so as a practical matter you will lose more people than you’ll gain (or lose the right people, gain the wrong people).
This sounds like a cop-out to me. Do you feel these ideas, in and of themselves, are too “toxic” to justify a cost benefit-analysis or is your argument simply that the ideas are currently too unpopular to consider for practical reasons?
Ideas that you talk about don’t stand on their own. They exist within a historical and social context. You can’t look at the idea without also considering how it affects people. I imagine Matthew personally finds the idea toxic too, as do I—but that’s not really the point.
Perhaps Rationalism really argues that fewer ideas should be taboo, or perhaps that’s just Hanania’s version of it. But EA isn’t synonymous with Rationalism, and you don’t need to adopt one (certainly not completely) to accept the other.
So are you saying “within our current historical and social context” yeppers, too toxic to consider for cost-benefit analysis? This is a totally acceptable answer—just means Hanania is right and we can end the convo here.
So are you saying you disagree with Hanania’s conceptualization of rationalism? Are subjections being off-limits to cost-benefit analysis fine with you? Sounds like again the answer is yes.
I don’t know if his characterization is right or not, I’m not a Rationalist. But of course subjects being taboo because of the harm discussing them does is fine. Why wouldn’t it be?
Why would it not be fine for topics to be off limit for discussion?
The first principle of EA discusses the need for a “‘scout mindset’ - seeking the truth, rather than to defend our current ideas.”
You may be aware that at one point the idea the earth revolves around the Sun was taboo.
What is taboo varies widely over time and by culture. Even the idea that having an open honest discussion about anything could ever be construed as “causing harm” (beside from being a terrible one imo) is a very new concept and one that would have been universally dismissed maybe even 15 years ago.
At any rate, it sounds like you are fine with topics being absolutely off limits to discuss. This is a bit of a surprising admission to me considering the core principles of EA but you are, apparently, certainly not alone in this belief.
Traditionally, thought leaders in EA have been careful not to define any “core principles” besides the basic idea of “we want to find out using evidence and reason how to do as much good as possible, and to apply that knowledge in practice”. While it’s true that various perceptions and beliefs have creeped in over the years, none of them is sacred.
In any case, as far as I understand the “scout mindset” (which I admit isn’t much), it doesn’t rule out recognising areas which would be better left alone (for real, practical reasons—not because the church said so).
How can we “find out using evidence and reason how to do as much good as possible, and to apply that knowledge in practice” if some avenues to well-being are forbidden? The idea that no potential area is off limits is inherent in the mission. We must be open to doing whatever does the most good possible regardless of how it interacts with our pre-existing biases or taboos.
This would not have been a remotely controversial statement in a community like this 20 years ago.
The fact that this was downvoted several times without any counter argument is a pretty clear signal that we’ve reached the end of rational discussion here.
As a concrete example, suppose that 100 years ago, a bunch of racist politicians passed a minimum wage law in order to price a local ethnic minority out of the labor market. The minimum wage exists within that historical and social context. However, if more recent research shows definitively that the minimum wage is now improving employment outcomes for that same ethnic minority, the historical and social context would appear to be irrelevant.
I think you have misread and misused the quote. It does not suggest following HBD to its “logical destination” (which in my mind evokes things like genocide and forced sterilization), it suggests that if EA were to accept different biological bases for observed phenomena, such as men disproportionately occupying positions of leadership, EA would then naturally progress to the idea that other observed phenomena (Asian and Jewish overrepresentation in cognitively demanding fields, for example) could be reflections of biological reality.
I think Jgray’s comment addresses my other notion that your position on a topic being too toxic to even discuss in good faith perfectly fits Hanania’s framework of the taboo.
“Group differences in IQ is right around the corner, and if you’re going to maintain any kind of commitment to rationalism you’re going to have to either stop yourself before getting on that train or take it to its logical destination.”
Yikes.
Eugenics or “human biodiversity” isn’t a new idea and is incredibly toxic to most people. It has no place in the EA movement. If you let it anywhere near the movement, the only people that will remain are contrarian right-wingers that care more about being edgy and provocative than helping people or other animals. And also those who enjoy hanging around contrarian right-wingers (maybe they find them endearing or something? idk).
Speaking as a group leader for a local EA group, if someone tried to start a conversation on HBD and its assumed “logical destination” at a group meetup, I would immediately and permanently ban them from the group. It is incredibly hard to bring in different perspectives that lead to good decisions and better normative ethics. One conversation like that is enough to permanently lose many people I want in my group. If banning a few disagreeable right-wing “rationalists” who like to talk about HBD means lots of other people stay, I’ll gladly take that trade-off.
For those who think a ban is too harsh: go read the article linked to in this post, read several other top posts from the author, and read the comments from the blogs followers.
There are plenty of contributions right-wing ideas and disagreeable rationalists can make to the EA movement. Many of the movements best ideas come from those who identify that way. Just not the kind demonstrated in this post.
[EDIT] I’m puzzled by the disagreement votes, so adding some more context: In the linked blog post, Richard Hanania writes “A free market in ideas is like a free market in any other good or service. It ends up with Asian and white men on top who are there because they’re simply better than everyone else. Movements uncomfortable with this naturally get swallowed by wokeness.”
I think it’s pretty clear that what Richard Hanania and the post author mean when they say “anti-woke” is that they think EA should entertain operationalized racism and sexism. Anti-racism and anti-sexism are commitments wildly shared by EA community builders. If being anti-racist and anti-sexist is “woke”, the majority of EA has been “woke” for a long time and does better because of it.
“Eugenics or ‘human biodiversity’ isn’t a new idea and is incredibly toxic to most people.”
>right, calling an idea “toxic” is literally the same thing as calling it “taboo.” Hanania argues rationalism is the belief that “fewer topics...should be considered taboo...and not subject to cost-benefit anaysis.”
It sounds like your argument isn’t explicitly saying that you consider this topic off limits personally, but rather too many others view it as taboo so as a practical matter you will lose more people than you’ll gain (or lose the right people, gain the wrong people).
This sounds like a cop-out to me. Do you feel these ideas, in and of themselves, are too “toxic” to justify a cost benefit-analysis or is your argument simply that the ideas are currently too unpopular to consider for practical reasons?
Ideas that you talk about don’t stand on their own. They exist within a historical and social context. You can’t look at the idea without also considering how it affects people. I imagine Matthew personally finds the idea toxic too, as do I—but that’s not really the point.
Perhaps Rationalism really argues that fewer ideas should be taboo, or perhaps that’s just Hanania’s version of it. But EA isn’t synonymous with Rationalism, and you don’t need to adopt one (certainly not completely) to accept the other.
So are you saying “within our current historical and social context” yeppers, too toxic to consider for cost-benefit analysis? This is a totally acceptable answer—just means Hanania is right and we can end the convo here.
So are you saying you disagree with Hanania’s conceptualization of rationalism? Are subjections being off-limits to cost-benefit analysis fine with you? Sounds like again the answer is yes.
I didn’t understand (1).
I don’t know if his characterization is right or not, I’m not a Rationalist. But of course subjects being taboo because of the harm discussing them does is fine. Why wouldn’t it be?
Why would it not be fine for topics to be off limit for discussion?
The first principle of EA discusses the need for a “‘scout mindset’ - seeking the truth, rather than to defend our current ideas.”
You may be aware that at one point the idea the earth revolves around the Sun was taboo.
What is taboo varies widely over time and by culture. Even the idea that having an open honest discussion about anything could ever be construed as “causing harm” (beside from being a terrible one imo) is a very new concept and one that would have been universally dismissed maybe even 15 years ago.
At any rate, it sounds like you are fine with topics being absolutely off limits to discuss. This is a bit of a surprising admission to me considering the core principles of EA but you are, apparently, certainly not alone in this belief.
Traditionally, thought leaders in EA have been careful not to define any “core principles” besides the basic idea of “we want to find out using evidence and reason how to do as much good as possible, and to apply that knowledge in practice”. While it’s true that various perceptions and beliefs have creeped in over the years, none of them is sacred.
In any case, as far as I understand the “scout mindset” (which I admit isn’t much), it doesn’t rule out recognising areas which would be better left alone (for real, practical reasons—not because the church said so).
To me, “better left alone” and “sacred” are two sides of the same coin.
How can we “find out using evidence and reason how to do as much good as possible, and to apply that knowledge in practice” if some avenues to well-being are forbidden? The idea that no potential area is off limits is inherent in the mission. We must be open to doing whatever does the most good possible regardless of how it interacts with our pre-existing biases or taboos.
100%
This would not have been a remotely controversial statement in a community like this 20 years ago.
The fact that this was downvoted several times without any counter argument is a pretty clear signal that we’ve reached the end of rational discussion here.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
As a concrete example, suppose that 100 years ago, a bunch of racist politicians passed a minimum wage law in order to price a local ethnic minority out of the labor market. The minimum wage exists within that historical and social context. However, if more recent research shows definitively that the minimum wage is now improving employment outcomes for that same ethnic minority, the historical and social context would appear to be irrelevant.
I think you have misread and misused the quote. It does not suggest following HBD to its “logical destination” (which in my mind evokes things like genocide and forced sterilization), it suggests that if EA were to accept different biological bases for observed phenomena, such as men disproportionately occupying positions of leadership, EA would then naturally progress to the idea that other observed phenomena (Asian and Jewish overrepresentation in cognitively demanding fields, for example) could be reflections of biological reality.
I think Jgray’s comment addresses my other notion that your position on a topic being too toxic to even discuss in good faith perfectly fits Hanania’s framework of the taboo.