I have not (yet) known myself to ever be negatively affected for speaking my mind in EA. However, I know others who have. Some possible reasons for the difference:
My fundamental ethical beliefs are pretty similar to the most senior people.
On the EA Forum, I make almost extreme effort to make tight claims and avoid overclaiming (though I don’t always succeed). If I have vibes-based criticisms (I have plenty) I tend to keep them to people I trust.
I “know my audience:” I am good at determining how to say things such that they won’t be received poorly. This doesn’t mean “rhetoric,” it means being aware of the most common ways my audience might misinterpret my words or the intent behind them, and making a conscious effort to clearly avoid those misinterpretations.
Related to the above, I tend to “listen before I speak” in new environments. I avoid making sweeping claims before I know my audience and understand their perspective inside and out.
I’m a techy white man working in AI safety and I’m not a leftist, so I’m less likely to be typed by people as an “outsider.” I suspect this is mostly subconscious, except for the leftist part, where I think there are some community members who will consciously think you are harmful to the epistemic environment if they think you’re a leftist and don’t know much else about you. Sometimes this is in a fair way, and sometimes it’s not.
I have not (yet) known myself to ever be negatively affected for speaking my mind in EA.
Same goes for me, despite not satisfying most of your bullet points, and I often comment with contrarian and controversial views, and am a leftist.
But I think different orgs might have very different approaches here. I took part in a residency and in some other activities organised by Czech EAs, and I made it to advanced stages of the hiring process of Rethink Priorities and some other orgs. I hold all of those in high regard, including those who ultimately rejected me, but there are many others who seem fishy in comparison, and who I can see taking my views as expressed on the forum into account.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that if you don’t have one of those bullet points, you are going to be “blacklisted” or negatively affected as a result of speaking your mind. They just seemed like contributing factors for me, based on my experience. And yeah, I agree different people evaluate differently.
I respect you for writing this comment.
This would be something I’d be uncomfortable writing under my name.
I have not (yet) known myself to ever be negatively affected for speaking my mind in EA. However, I know others who have. Some possible reasons for the difference:
My fundamental ethical beliefs are pretty similar to the most senior people.
On the EA Forum, I make almost extreme effort to make tight claims and avoid overclaiming (though I don’t always succeed). If I have vibes-based criticisms (I have plenty) I tend to keep them to people I trust.
I “know my audience:” I am good at determining how to say things such that they won’t be received poorly. This doesn’t mean “rhetoric,” it means being aware of the most common ways my audience might misinterpret my words or the intent behind them, and making a conscious effort to clearly avoid those misinterpretations.
Related to the above, I tend to “listen before I speak” in new environments. I avoid making sweeping claims before I know my audience and understand their perspective inside and out.
I’m a techy white man working in AI safety and I’m not a leftist, so I’m less likely to be typed by people as an “outsider.” I suspect this is mostly subconscious, except for the leftist part, where I think there are some community members who will consciously think you are harmful to the epistemic environment if they think you’re a leftist and don’t know much else about you. Sometimes this is in a fair way, and sometimes it’s not.
I’m very junior, but in comparison to even more junior people I have more “f*** you social capital” and “f*** you concrete achievements you cannot ignore”.
Same goes for me, despite not satisfying most of your bullet points, and I often comment with contrarian and controversial views, and am a leftist.
But I think different orgs might have very different approaches here. I took part in a residency and in some other activities organised by Czech EAs, and I made it to advanced stages of the hiring process of Rethink Priorities and some other orgs. I hold all of those in high regard, including those who ultimately rejected me, but there are many others who seem fishy in comparison, and who I can see taking my views as expressed on the forum into account.
I’m a “white” male too though.
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that if you don’t have one of those bullet points, you are going to be “blacklisted” or negatively affected as a result of speaking your mind. They just seemed like contributing factors for me, based on my experience. And yeah, I agree different people evaluate differently.
Thanks for sharing your perspective.