I apologize if I did not characterize the fears correctly
I think you didn’t. My fear isn’t, first and foremost, about some theoretical future backsliding, creating safe spaces, or protecting reputations (although given the TESCREAL discourse, I think these are issues). My fear is:
Multiple people at Manifest witnessed and/or had racist encounters.
Racism has been, and continues to be, very insidious and very harmful.
EA is meant to be a force for good in the world; even more than that, EA aims to benefit others as much as possible.
So the bar for EA needs to be a lot higher than “only some of our ‘special guests’ say racist stuff on a regular basis” and “not everyone experienced racism at our event.”
I am bolstered by the fact that Manifest is not Rationalism and Rationalism is not EA. But I am frustrated that articulating the above position is seen as even remotely in the realm of “pushing society in a direction that leads to things like… the thought police from 1984.” This strikes me as uncharitable pearl-clutching, given that organizers have an easy, non-speech-infringing way of reducing the likelihood that their events elicit and incite racism: not listing Hanania, who wasn’t even a speaker, as a special guest on their website, while still allowing him to attend if he so chooses.
I think if you had a person invited who is known at events to get drunk and go to to people and comment negatively about their least flattering physical feature (e.g. your pimples are gross) it would not be a worry if that person was not invited. This is not about politics but about inappropriate behaviour.
Yeah, to be clear, I think inappropriate interpersonal behavior can absolutely warrant banning people from attending events, and this whole situation has given me more respect for how CEA strikes this balance with respect to EAGs.
I was mainly responding to the point that “we might come up with ideas that let each side get more of what they want at a smaller cost to what the other side wants,” by suggesting that, at a minimum, the organizers could’ve done things that would’ve involved ~no costs.
I believe this is not a valid analogy. If you uninvite someone from events for making rude comments about other attendees’ appearances, that only applies to that one rude person, or to people who behave rudely. If you disinvite someone for holding political views you’re uncomfortable with, that has a chilling effect on all uncommon political views, and is harmful to everyone’s epistemics.
Fair point. Where to draw the line between what is and isn’t politics isn’t clear cut or as Thomas Mann put it: “Everything is politics.” Perhaps pimples is less political than comments that relate to e.g. religion or something else “structural”. I guess where I feel like there is something in my comment is one then concludes something like “it is ok to offend someone as long as the offence ties into power structures”. I guess this would theoretically mean then that it is ok for someone to comment on someone with lower income on e.g. their cheap clothing (or pick your physical proxy for class). That does not seem right so I still think I think that people acting offensively regarding race should be encouraged to change their behavior to be less offensive. And if there is a need to discuss something offensive (e.g. in nuclear weapons discussions discuss the horror that followed the bombing of Hiroshima, maybe make this clear to participants in advance so they can avoid the event/part of the event if that is a challenging topic for them).
So I think it is totally fine for a group to ban particular controversial topics during meetings. What I think causes the problems I am worried about is banning people who have known controversial opinions that are expressed elsewhere.
If a specific person is unwilling to refrain from talking about their favorite subject at the meeting, I am then fine with banning them for that specific behavior (so long as it is done with a reasonable process, involving warnings and requiring people expressing the opposite point of view to also not start the arguments)
I am a bit more unsure about this but I also thinks this cuts the other way—if someone at an event loudly went around advocating for forcefully taking (e.g. by nationalising their wealth in an unprecedented and somewhat aggressive way ) rich people’s money to fund egalitarian project X, I think one could also argue that such people make others uncomfortable enough that their attendance is undesirable.
I think you didn’t. My fear isn’t, first and foremost, about some theoretical future backsliding, creating safe spaces, or protecting reputations (although given the TESCREAL discourse, I think these are issues). My fear is:
Multiple people at Manifest witnessed and/or had racist encounters.
Racism has been, and continues to be, very insidious and very harmful.
EA is meant to be a force for good in the world; even more than that, EA aims to benefit others as much as possible.
So the bar for EA needs to be a lot higher than “only some of our ‘special guests’ say racist stuff on a regular basis” and “not everyone experienced racism at our event.”
I am bolstered by the fact that Manifest is not Rationalism and Rationalism is not EA. But I am frustrated that articulating the above position is seen as even remotely in the realm of “pushing society in a direction that leads to things like… the thought police from 1984.” This strikes me as uncharitable pearl-clutching, given that organizers have an easy, non-speech-infringing way of reducing the likelihood that their events elicit and incite racism: not listing Hanania, who wasn’t even a speaker, as a special guest on their website, while still allowing him to attend if he so chooses.
I think if you had a person invited who is known at events to get drunk and go to to people and comment negatively about their least flattering physical feature (e.g. your pimples are gross) it would not be a worry if that person was not invited. This is not about politics but about inappropriate behaviour.
Yeah, to be clear, I think inappropriate interpersonal behavior can absolutely warrant banning people from attending events, and this whole situation has given me more respect for how CEA strikes this balance with respect to EAGs.
I was mainly responding to the point that “we might come up with ideas that let each side get more of what they want at a smaller cost to what the other side wants,” by suggesting that, at a minimum, the organizers could’ve done things that would’ve involved ~no costs.
I believe this is not a valid analogy. If you uninvite someone from events for making rude comments about other attendees’ appearances, that only applies to that one rude person, or to people who behave rudely. If you disinvite someone for holding political views you’re uncomfortable with, that has a chilling effect on all uncommon political views, and is harmful to everyone’s epistemics.
The inappropriate behavior here is being a person who holds particular political beliefs about the world and expresses them.
It is definitely also about politics.
Fair point. Where to draw the line between what is and isn’t politics isn’t clear cut or as Thomas Mann put it: “Everything is politics.” Perhaps pimples is less political than comments that relate to e.g. religion or something else “structural”. I guess where I feel like there is something in my comment is one then concludes something like “it is ok to offend someone as long as the offence ties into power structures”. I guess this would theoretically mean then that it is ok for someone to comment on someone with lower income on e.g. their cheap clothing (or pick your physical proxy for class). That does not seem right so I still think I think that people acting offensively regarding race should be encouraged to change their behavior to be less offensive. And if there is a need to discuss something offensive (e.g. in nuclear weapons discussions discuss the horror that followed the bombing of Hiroshima, maybe make this clear to participants in advance so they can avoid the event/part of the event if that is a challenging topic for them).
So I think it is totally fine for a group to ban particular controversial topics during meetings. What I think causes the problems I am worried about is banning people who have known controversial opinions that are expressed elsewhere.
If a specific person is unwilling to refrain from talking about their favorite subject at the meeting, I am then fine with banning them for that specific behavior (so long as it is done with a reasonable process, involving warnings and requiring people expressing the opposite point of view to also not start the arguments)
I am a bit more unsure about this but I also thinks this cuts the other way—if someone at an event loudly went around advocating for forcefully taking (e.g. by nationalising their wealth in an unprecedented and somewhat aggressive way ) rich people’s money to fund egalitarian project X, I think one could also argue that such people make others uncomfortable enough that their attendance is undesirable.
Eh, and I just think that should straightforwardly be allowed as on topic.
I mean part of me thinks we should do that, at least with the tax revenues already being collected from rich people, like normal Americans.
If it’s a terrible idea, it would be better within my model for the conversation to happen.