Thanks for engaging! Yep I agree with what you said—cross-pollination and interdisciplinary engagement and all that. For context I haven’t spent a lot of time looking at the Collins’ work, hence light stakes/investment for this discussion. But my impression of their work makes me skeptical that they are “highly accomplished” in any field and I am also very surprised that they would be “thinkers [you] respect” (to borrow from Austin’s comment).
In terms of their ideas, I think that hosting someone as a speaker at your conference doesn’t mean that you endorse all of their ideas. But I think it does mean that you endorse their broad method—how they go about thinking about and communicating their ideas. Looking at the Collins’ public output, it’s surprising that you would find their work intellectually honest or truth-seeking, which are presumably values of the organisers. I’ll leave aside other values which they seem at odds with, which are more serious but harder to discuss. Here are some titles from their Youtube account within the last few months: - “Why the left has to erase the gay male identity” - “Feminists won the culture war but lost at life” - “Is a cult using the trans movement for cover? And how you can protect your kids” - “Starship troopers prove leftist ideology is evil” - “Are woke ideas secretly eugenic? with Ed Dutton” (Ed Dutton is a QAnon-believing, transphobic, white supremacist. They have collaborated with him multiple times in the past few months, I haven’t looked further).
To be clear, clickbait is fine. It’s the tone and ideas that matter. If you think Youtube is a poor forum for intellectual content, compare their output to Rob Miles’ youtube content (another speaker). I think there’s a pretty big gulf in how much intellectual respect and endorsement they deserve relative to other potential candidates. Who you respect is your call, but an important factor for whether a conference is good or not is the intellectual taste of the organizers.
Meta: Thanks for your response! I recognize that you are under no obligation to comment here, which makes me all the more appreciative that you’re continuing the conversation. <3
***
I’ve engaged with the Collins’ content for about a minute or two in total, and with them personally for the equivalent of half an email chain and a tenth of a conversation. Interpersonally, I’ve found them quite friendly/reasonable people. Their shared panel at the last Manifest was one of the highest rated of the conference; multiple people came up to me to tell me that they really enjoyed it. On their actual content, I think Austin and/or Rachel have much more knowledge/takes/context — I deferred to them re: “does their content check out.” Those were my reasons for inviting them back.
I’ll add that there is a class of people who have strongly-worded, warped, and especially inflammatory headlines (or tweets, etc), but whose underlying perspectives/object-level views can often be much more reasonable — or at least I strongly respect the methods by which they go about their thoughts. There’s a mental wince to reading one of their headlines, where in my head I go ”...oh, god. Man, I know what you’re trying to say, but couldn’t you… I dunno, say it nicely? in a less inflammatory way, or something?” And I often find that these people are actually quite kind/nice IRL — but you read their Twitter, or something, and you think ”...oh man, these are some pretty wild takes.”
I’m not too sure how to act in these scenarios/how to react to these types of people. Still, the combination of [nice/bright IRL] + [high respect for Rachel & Austin’s perspective on object-level things] = the Collins’ probably fall into the category of “I really dislike the fact that they use clickbaity, inflammatory titles to farm engagement, but they (probably) have high-quality object-level takes and I know that they’re reasonable people IRL.”
I appreciate your bringing to attention their YouTube channel, which I hadn’t seen before. I’m not heartened by the titles, though I haven’t reviewed the content.
***
Again — thanks for your comments. I’m going to continue copying the note below in this and following comments, both for you & for posterity.
(To Ben & anyone else who’s reading this: I’d be happy to hop on a call with anyone who’d like to talk more about any of the decisions we’ve made, take notes on/recording of the call, then post the notes/recording publicly here. https://savvycal.com/saulmunn/manifest )
Thanks for engaging! Yep I agree with what you said—cross-pollination and interdisciplinary engagement and all that. For context I haven’t spent a lot of time looking at the Collins’ work, hence light stakes/investment for this discussion. But my impression of their work makes me skeptical that they are “highly accomplished” in any field and I am also very surprised that they would be “thinkers [you] respect” (to borrow from Austin’s comment).
In terms of their ideas, I think that hosting someone as a speaker at your conference doesn’t mean that you endorse all of their ideas. But I think it does mean that you endorse their broad method—how they go about thinking about and communicating their ideas. Looking at the Collins’ public output, it’s surprising that you would find their work intellectually honest or truth-seeking, which are presumably values of the organisers. I’ll leave aside other values which they seem at odds with, which are more serious but harder to discuss. Here are some titles from their Youtube account within the last few months:
- “Why the left has to erase the gay male identity”
- “Feminists won the culture war but lost at life”
- “Is a cult using the trans movement for cover? And how you can protect your kids”
- “Starship troopers prove leftist ideology is evil”
- “Are woke ideas secretly eugenic? with Ed Dutton” (Ed Dutton is a QAnon-believing, transphobic, white supremacist. They have collaborated with him multiple times in the past few months, I haven’t looked further).
To be clear, clickbait is fine. It’s the tone and ideas that matter. If you think Youtube is a poor forum for intellectual content, compare their output to Rob Miles’ youtube content (another speaker). I think there’s a pretty big gulf in how much intellectual respect and endorsement they deserve relative to other potential candidates. Who you respect is your call, but an important factor for whether a conference is good or not is the intellectual taste of the organizers.
Meta: Thanks for your response! I recognize that you are under no obligation to comment here, which makes me all the more appreciative that you’re continuing the conversation. <3
***
I’ve engaged with the Collins’ content for about a minute or two in total, and with them personally for the equivalent of half an email chain and a tenth of a conversation. Interpersonally, I’ve found them quite friendly/reasonable people. Their shared panel at the last Manifest was one of the highest rated of the conference; multiple people came up to me to tell me that they really enjoyed it. On their actual content, I think Austin and/or Rachel have much more knowledge/takes/context — I deferred to them re: “does their content check out.” Those were my reasons for inviting them back.
I’ll add that there is a class of people who have strongly-worded, warped, and especially inflammatory headlines (or tweets, etc), but whose underlying perspectives/object-level views can often be much more reasonable — or at least I strongly respect the methods by which they go about their thoughts. There’s a mental wince to reading one of their headlines, where in my head I go ”...oh, god. Man, I know what you’re trying to say, but couldn’t you… I dunno, say it nicely? in a less inflammatory way, or something?” And I often find that these people are actually quite kind/nice IRL — but you read their Twitter, or something, and you think ”...oh man, these are some pretty wild takes.”
I’m not too sure how to act in these scenarios/how to react to these types of people. Still, the combination of [nice/bright IRL] + [high respect for Rachel & Austin’s perspective on object-level things] = the Collins’ probably fall into the category of “I really dislike the fact that they use clickbaity, inflammatory titles to farm engagement, but they (probably) have high-quality object-level takes and I know that they’re reasonable people IRL.”
I appreciate your bringing to attention their YouTube channel, which I hadn’t seen before. I’m not heartened by the titles, though I haven’t reviewed the content.
***
Again — thanks for your comments. I’m going to continue copying the note below in this and following comments, both for you & for posterity.
(To Ben & anyone else who’s reading this: I’d be happy to hop on a call with anyone who’d like to talk more about any of the decisions we’ve made, take notes on/recording of the call, then post the notes/recording publicly here. https://savvycal.com/saulmunn/manifest )