I can’t speak for everyone, but I think the crux is that I tend to think the objectors are actually in the first camp, and that they need to be fought on that basis. And so moving forward towards agreement would creating trust that the objectors actually aren’t.
I think that’s going to make it significantly harder to make progress here. An assertion that people who have asserted X, and denied Y, actually believe Y implies that those people are misrepresenting their position for tactical advantage. Few people who actually believe X and not Y are going to be receptive to an expectation that they move toward W to prove they don’t believe Y. I get that there are in fact individuals in society on these issues who actually cloak their belief in Y by asserting only X, but it doesn’t follow that the particular X-believers in front of you are doing that.
This goes for both sides, by the way—I believe there are individuals in society who defend platforming speech I find to be vile because they like the contents of the speech rather than out of free-speech principles as they claim. There may (or may not) be such individuals on the Forum. But: it wouldn’t be fair or helpful for me to assume that any particular person was attempting to deceive me about the reasons for their support of Manifund’s decision.
Moreover, the proffered reasons for the various positions either have merit, or they lack merit, irrespective of the subjective motivations of the people offering those positions.
But I think there is also an important difference on the question of what it means to invite someone as a speaker—ie does it mean that you are endorsing in some sense what they say, or are you just saying that they are someone that enough attendees will find interesting to make it worth giving them a speaking slot.
Yeah, that’s a critical crux here. I think there are at least a couple of axes going on here:
I think one difference is the extent to which we think of norms as something we rationally work out within this community, and the extent to which we think they exist apart from this community. It might well be true that waving a magic wand to get everyone to follow a no-inference norm would be ideal if we had that power. But it might also be true that we actually have ~zero influence on meanings that people outside the relevant communities ascribe to certain actions, and lack the ability to rewire deeply-engrained reactions many people have from being born and raised in broader society.
For instance, some (probably most!) people are going to feel unwelcomed at a conference at which people are presenting about how their ethnic group is less intelligent than others, and some will feel unwelcomed in the broader community and associated communities. Saying that people “shouldn’t” feel that way doesn’t address those harms.
There exists a wide range of potential meanings that can be ascribed to action in relation to a speaker. While “no meaning whatsoever” and “whole-hearted endorsement of all of the speaker’s most controversial ideas” are the poles, there is a continuum of potential meanings. For instance: “this person has serious ideas worth listening to.” I think both sides need to be careful to specify with more precision what meaning(s) they think are reasonable/unreasonable.
For instance, someone suggesting “endorsement” by a conference organizer should be clear on what exactly they think is being endorsed. My guess is that many bald references to endorsement actually refer to endorsement that the person has a serious idea worth listening to, rather than that the person is correct.
Likewise, my guess is that at least some people stating “no endorsement” positions may actually accept a very limited view of endorsement. For example, they might view it as worthy of criticism to platform (e.g.) someone who favored the death penalty for sex outside of heterosexual marriage, blasphemy, and other things the speaker considered immoral. (Sadly, these people actually exist.) In other words, we should not merely assume no-endorsement advocates are biting the bullet all the way unless they specifically endorse that position.
For some of us, the appropriate meaning to ascribe depends on context. For instance, many people would assign a much lower level of meaning (if any) to a payment processor than to [edit: Manifest, not Manifold] than to an issue-advocacy group or a political party. The broader context of the entity’s platforming decisions may also play a role—e.g., if an entity platforms a range of speakers on X issue, then certain meanings become logically incoherent or at least much less plausible.
The previous two points suggest to me that this is at least a little bit about Manifest. “What is the purpose of Manifest?” seems somewhat relevant to this discussion. If the purpose of Manifest is bring speakers “that enough attendees will find interesting to make it worth giving them a speaking slot,” then that’s one thing. If it’s to have important conversations worth having, then that does imply something more about speaker selection to me. In a sense, this is judging platforming decisions by the standard the platform has set for itself.
I don’t assume that (e.g.) executives at most US TV networks endorse anything about the speakers they platform beyond being not-abhorrent and being profitable. On the other hand, there’s a flipside to that. I expect them to own up to their predominately profit-seeking as opposed to truth-seeking / socially valuable mission, and not claim to be more than primarily the bread-and-circuses delivery services they are.
Finally, for most viewpoints, some degree of object-level assessment of the speech is going to be necessary. For a silly example, platforming speakers who believe the world is flat and carried around on a turtle isn’t consistent with a platform’s professed goal of hosting important conversations that matter. Neither is platforming speakers who make speeches about how terrible an entity the New England Patriots are (no matter how true this is!)
I think that’s going to make it significantly harder to make progress here. An assertion that people who have asserted X, and denied Y, actually believe Y implies that those people are misrepresenting their position for tactical advantage. Few people who actually believe X and not Y are going to be receptive to an expectation that they move toward W to prove they don’t believe Y. I get that there are in fact individuals in society on these issues who actually cloak their belief in Y by asserting only X, but it doesn’t follow that the particular X-believers in front of you are doing that.
This goes for both sides, by the way—I believe there are individuals in society who defend platforming speech I find to be vile because they like the contents of the speech rather than out of free-speech principles as they claim. There may (or may not) be such individuals on the Forum. But: it wouldn’t be fair or helpful for me to assume that any particular person was attempting to deceive me about the reasons for their support of Manifund’s decision.
Moreover, the proffered reasons for the various positions either have merit, or they lack merit, irrespective of the subjective motivations of the people offering those positions.
Yeah, that’s a critical crux here. I think there are at least a couple of axes going on here:
I think one difference is the extent to which we think of norms as something we rationally work out within this community, and the extent to which we think they exist apart from this community. It might well be true that waving a magic wand to get everyone to follow a no-inference norm would be ideal if we had that power. But it might also be true that we actually have ~zero influence on meanings that people outside the relevant communities ascribe to certain actions, and lack the ability to rewire deeply-engrained reactions many people have from being born and raised in broader society.
For instance, some (probably most!) people are going to feel unwelcomed at a conference at which people are presenting about how their ethnic group is less intelligent than others, and some will feel unwelcomed in the broader community and associated communities. Saying that people “shouldn’t” feel that way doesn’t address those harms.
There exists a wide range of potential meanings that can be ascribed to action in relation to a speaker. While “no meaning whatsoever” and “whole-hearted endorsement of all of the speaker’s most controversial ideas” are the poles, there is a continuum of potential meanings. For instance: “this person has serious ideas worth listening to.” I think both sides need to be careful to specify with more precision what meaning(s) they think are reasonable/unreasonable.
For instance, someone suggesting “endorsement” by a conference organizer should be clear on what exactly they think is being endorsed. My guess is that many bald references to endorsement actually refer to endorsement that the person has a serious idea worth listening to, rather than that the person is correct.
Likewise, my guess is that at least some people stating “no endorsement” positions may actually accept a very limited view of endorsement. For example, they might view it as worthy of criticism to platform (e.g.) someone who favored the death penalty for sex outside of heterosexual marriage, blasphemy, and other things the speaker considered immoral. (Sadly, these people actually exist.) In other words, we should not merely assume no-endorsement advocates are biting the bullet all the way unless they specifically endorse that position.
For some of us, the appropriate meaning to ascribe depends on context. For instance, many people would assign a much lower level of meaning (if any) to a payment processor than to [edit: Manifest, not Manifold] than to an issue-advocacy group or a political party. The broader context of the entity’s platforming decisions may also play a role—e.g., if an entity platforms a range of speakers on X issue, then certain meanings become logically incoherent or at least much less plausible.
The previous two points suggest to me that this is at least a little bit about Manifest. “What is the purpose of Manifest?” seems somewhat relevant to this discussion. If the purpose of Manifest is bring speakers “that enough attendees will find interesting to make it worth giving them a speaking slot,” then that’s one thing. If it’s to have important conversations worth having, then that does imply something more about speaker selection to me. In a sense, this is judging platforming decisions by the standard the platform has set for itself.
I don’t assume that (e.g.) executives at most US TV networks endorse anything about the speakers they platform beyond being not-abhorrent and being profitable. On the other hand, there’s a flipside to that. I expect them to own up to their predominately profit-seeking as opposed to truth-seeking / socially valuable mission, and not claim to be more than primarily the bread-and-circuses delivery services they are.
Finally, for most viewpoints, some degree of object-level assessment of the speech is going to be necessary. For a silly example, platforming speakers who believe the world is flat and carried around on a turtle isn’t consistent with a platform’s professed goal of hosting important conversations that matter. Neither is platforming speakers who make speeches about how terrible an entity the New England Patriots are (no matter how true this is!)