So, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I for one am quite glad that these discussions are being down-voted.
When we consider entertaining these discussions, we can take a consequentialist viewpoint and run a simple cost/benefit analysis to determine if entertaining the discussions is a good idea, such as the following:
Benefits = (tractability: chance entertaining discussion will lead to changes in EA thinking) (impact: amount of marginal good that will occur if change in EA thinking occurs) (maybe an uncertainty discount, depending on your preference) + (improved reach: benefits of bringing in new EAs who are amicable to these arguments) + (value externalities: benefits that arise from fomenting a culture of openness to new ideas among EAs)
Costs = (decreased reach: harms of causing EAs not amicable to these arguments to become disenchanted with EA) + (reputational risk: harms that would arise if people started saying “EAs seem to be amenable to alt-right discussions”, which in turn would further scuttle our already struggling efforts to diversity the EA movement and repaint ourselves in a better light)
People pushing the above arguments clearly think that the potential impacts of integrating these thoughts into EA are very very high (e.g., a lot more conservative people could join EA, we’d avert WWIII or something, etc.), even if they admit that the tractabillity is quite low, hence why they are pushing so strongly.
However, I, and many other EAs, believe very strongly that the costs (reputation risk + harming our ability to reach more potential EAs) are higher than the potential benefits. I’d also say that, for many of us, the estimated sign on “amount of marginal good that will occur if change in EA thinking occurs” associated with the above arguments is actually negative, for a variety of reasons.
Now, the people arguing for these arguments will most likely say “but what about intellectual diversity and freedom of speech!” To which I retort A) freedom of speech and the ideals of liberty do not mean that I have to spend my time entertaining your thoughts or that I need to write 10 pages explaining why, exactly, I think you are mistaken, and B) as a consequentialist, I am a fan of pushing and supporting equal intellectual diversity as a vehicle for good, and in this case I very strongly think that entertaining this particular form of intellectual diversity will cause much more harm than good. I do think that we need to push for more intellectual diversity in the EA movement, but there are much better ways to do this than entertain this sort of discussion.
I don’t believe people should vote on posts based on whether they believe the posts do net benefit or net harm. That’s what a naive utilitarian approach would suggest, but I don’t think we should take a naive utilitarian approach. Instead we should vote based on how meaningfully the post contributes, even if we believe the conclusion is wrong.
I disagree with your claim that we should censor “bad” opinions and I believe this sort of behavior damages healthy discourse in the long run. I’m not downvoting your comment because that would go against my beliefs about how people ought to vote on things. Actually I’m upvoting it because you’re saying something relatively novel and it made me think about things in a way I hadn’t before.
I do think that we need to push for more intellectual diversity in the EA movement, but there are much better ways to do this than entertain this sort of discussion.
I’d be interested in knowing what ways you think would be better.
Thank you, to be frankly honest I’m not too sure how sold I am on my argument either—naive utilitarianism is definitely a fun way to explore new models, but I definitely agree that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously!
For intellectual diversity, I don’t have a concrete plan as of yet, but in general one of my main hang-up is my perception that EAs don’t give enough credence to the thoughts of practicioners who have been trying to improve the effectiveness of NGO and Government work for decades. I work in a large NGO, and my job focuses on improving the uptake of impact research evidence, and I originally approached my job from a very naive perspective, believing that EA-style thinking (even though I didn’t know about EA at the time) would easily improve the effectiveness of the organization. A lot of people were pushing back against the initiative, which I originally thought was just a matter of them ‘not getting it’, or ‘supporting the status quo’ - until I started talking to them, and realized that I was being the ridiculous one. That being said, I still had some things to add—which is why overall I think that similar engagements between EAs and non-EAs who are working on the effectiveness of a given topic should talk more (and the EAs should listen as much as they talk!). Learning more about how programs and aid and NGOs and such actually ‘work’ in reality and talking to experts on these topics may nuance a lot of people’s positions—it did for me at least.
I think engaging more with ‘traditional social movements’, like feminism, Black Lives Matters, labor unions, etc. could lead to similar benefits as well, especially as EAs consider how to grow and increase the power of the EA ‘movement’ - although, I understand that this is a touchier topic, so I don’t really push for it often.
People pushing the above arguments clearly think that the potential impacts of integrating these thoughts into EA are very very high
I’m only mildly confident that making this post was a good idea. I probably wouldn’t have made it if Haydn’s post had better anticipated objections like Henry’s. Haydn’s post made me worry that most EAs, including policy associates at the main EA think tank, are simply unaware of arguments that the right is making.
Happy to hear more thoughts on this, including sent as a personal message.
Thanks Xccf, it’s definitely good to explore these questions. I just personally worry that this specific anti-immigration part of the right has 1) become particularly dangerous in their rhetoric, and 2) has become too good at co-opting language used by EAs.
For 1, I’d probably defer to everyone else’s points on this. I won’t put out an argument, but just to give some background for where I am coming from—I grew up with Muslim and Immigrant friends, and after the rhetoric after 9/11 started getting heated my parents made sure that I listened to Bush’s (as well as everyone else’s) calls for tolerance, including by forcing me to read the wonderful book “Who speaks for Islam”. I just have never bought the ‘clash of civilizations’-type arguments as a result, and can find no evidence that behooves me to change my view. I now directly work for an organization that (among other things) pushes for refugee (including Syrian) rights. If I had any doubt that this work was dangerous, I’d quit.
For 2, it’s a little fuzzier, and a little less developed—so you’ll have to bear with me (I wish I had a good source writing this up—perhaps when I have time I’ll make one). I see a lot of cases of young white men (like myself, mind you) pushing pseudo-scientific screeds against various forms of equality (Milo Yiannopoulos is the king of this). Many people in this cohort portray themselves online (note: portrayal is everything in this case!) as the ‘logical’ ones, and say ‘I’ll change my mind if you can prove me wrong with facts in a reasonable argument’, and then complain that the real problem is ‘political correctness’, which is stifling their ‘freedom of speech’. On the surface, this looks like a sane line of argument, and seems like one that we should support (who doesn’t like freedom of speech, amiright?). And so this becomes a situation where they force the rest of us who believe in freedom of speech and intellectual diversity to either A) yell at them, thus making them look like the ones with the high ground, or B) try to reason with them, which accidentally normalizes their speech, and puts it into the mainstream. God forbid you actually manage to kick the legs out from under their argument, like I’ve managed to do on forums a few times, because then their buddies tend to try to cyberbully you, or worse if god forbid they dox you and people get your real address.
I really don’t want to make this come off as ad hominen or a judgement on your character, so please forgive me if I’m coming on a little too strong (and without enough evidence! which I do apologize for as well). I do not believe that you are one of these people that I mentioned—I’ve seen your posts, and you are very reasonable, but I strongly worry that Henry is one of these people based on the way he writes and the thoughts being pushed. Once again, I can’t prove this, but I just want to flag it just in case.
I agree: if EA wants to climb the ladder of prestige in the current climate, then best to avoid any crimethink. I only wrote my comments due to a request. EA is trying to have a high positive impact, but it is hamstrung by an establishment media that is disconnected from reality. There is very little that EA can do about this that wouldn’t confront that establishment. However, there are a couple things that EAs can do: stop publicly pushing for leftist partisan causes like open borders, and stop donating to Democrat political campaigns.
Also, it’s worth noting that what I just suggested is a fairly dangerous idea for a variety of reasons. So, by my logic, if the general consensus among everyone is that what I suggested will clearly lead to more harm than good, then I would very strongly suggest down-voting my comment into oblivion and never talking about it again ;)
So, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I for one am quite glad that these discussions are being down-voted.
When we consider entertaining these discussions, we can take a consequentialist viewpoint and run a simple cost/benefit analysis to determine if entertaining the discussions is a good idea, such as the following: Benefits = (tractability: chance entertaining discussion will lead to changes in EA thinking) (impact: amount of marginal good that will occur if change in EA thinking occurs) (maybe an uncertainty discount, depending on your preference) + (improved reach: benefits of bringing in new EAs who are amicable to these arguments) + (value externalities: benefits that arise from fomenting a culture of openness to new ideas among EAs) Costs = (decreased reach: harms of causing EAs not amicable to these arguments to become disenchanted with EA) + (reputational risk: harms that would arise if people started saying “EAs seem to be amenable to alt-right discussions”, which in turn would further scuttle our already struggling efforts to diversity the EA movement and repaint ourselves in a better light)
People pushing the above arguments clearly think that the potential impacts of integrating these thoughts into EA are very very high (e.g., a lot more conservative people could join EA, we’d avert WWIII or something, etc.), even if they admit that the tractabillity is quite low, hence why they are pushing so strongly.
However, I, and many other EAs, believe very strongly that the costs (reputation risk + harming our ability to reach more potential EAs) are higher than the potential benefits. I’d also say that, for many of us, the estimated sign on “amount of marginal good that will occur if change in EA thinking occurs” associated with the above arguments is actually negative, for a variety of reasons.
Now, the people arguing for these arguments will most likely say “but what about intellectual diversity and freedom of speech!” To which I retort A) freedom of speech and the ideals of liberty do not mean that I have to spend my time entertaining your thoughts or that I need to write 10 pages explaining why, exactly, I think you are mistaken, and B) as a consequentialist, I am a fan of pushing and supporting equal intellectual diversity as a vehicle for good, and in this case I very strongly think that entertaining this particular form of intellectual diversity will cause much more harm than good. I do think that we need to push for more intellectual diversity in the EA movement, but there are much better ways to do this than entertain this sort of discussion.
I don’t believe people should vote on posts based on whether they believe the posts do net benefit or net harm. That’s what a naive utilitarian approach would suggest, but I don’t think we should take a naive utilitarian approach. Instead we should vote based on how meaningfully the post contributes, even if we believe the conclusion is wrong.
I disagree with your claim that we should censor “bad” opinions and I believe this sort of behavior damages healthy discourse in the long run. I’m not downvoting your comment because that would go against my beliefs about how people ought to vote on things. Actually I’m upvoting it because you’re saying something relatively novel and it made me think about things in a way I hadn’t before.
I’d be interested in knowing what ways you think would be better.
Thank you, to be frankly honest I’m not too sure how sold I am on my argument either—naive utilitarianism is definitely a fun way to explore new models, but I definitely agree that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously! For intellectual diversity, I don’t have a concrete plan as of yet, but in general one of my main hang-up is my perception that EAs don’t give enough credence to the thoughts of practicioners who have been trying to improve the effectiveness of NGO and Government work for decades. I work in a large NGO, and my job focuses on improving the uptake of impact research evidence, and I originally approached my job from a very naive perspective, believing that EA-style thinking (even though I didn’t know about EA at the time) would easily improve the effectiveness of the organization. A lot of people were pushing back against the initiative, which I originally thought was just a matter of them ‘not getting it’, or ‘supporting the status quo’ - until I started talking to them, and realized that I was being the ridiculous one. That being said, I still had some things to add—which is why overall I think that similar engagements between EAs and non-EAs who are working on the effectiveness of a given topic should talk more (and the EAs should listen as much as they talk!). Learning more about how programs and aid and NGOs and such actually ‘work’ in reality and talking to experts on these topics may nuance a lot of people’s positions—it did for me at least. I think engaging more with ‘traditional social movements’, like feminism, Black Lives Matters, labor unions, etc. could lead to similar benefits as well, especially as EAs consider how to grow and increase the power of the EA ‘movement’ - although, I understand that this is a touchier topic, so I don’t really push for it often.
Thanks for the feedback, Rick.
I’m only mildly confident that making this post was a good idea. I probably wouldn’t have made it if Haydn’s post had better anticipated objections like Henry’s. Haydn’s post made me worry that most EAs, including policy associates at the main EA think tank, are simply unaware of arguments that the right is making.
Happy to hear more thoughts on this, including sent as a personal message.
Thanks Xccf, it’s definitely good to explore these questions. I just personally worry that this specific anti-immigration part of the right has 1) become particularly dangerous in their rhetoric, and 2) has become too good at co-opting language used by EAs. For 1, I’d probably defer to everyone else’s points on this. I won’t put out an argument, but just to give some background for where I am coming from—I grew up with Muslim and Immigrant friends, and after the rhetoric after 9/11 started getting heated my parents made sure that I listened to Bush’s (as well as everyone else’s) calls for tolerance, including by forcing me to read the wonderful book “Who speaks for Islam”. I just have never bought the ‘clash of civilizations’-type arguments as a result, and can find no evidence that behooves me to change my view. I now directly work for an organization that (among other things) pushes for refugee (including Syrian) rights. If I had any doubt that this work was dangerous, I’d quit. For 2, it’s a little fuzzier, and a little less developed—so you’ll have to bear with me (I wish I had a good source writing this up—perhaps when I have time I’ll make one). I see a lot of cases of young white men (like myself, mind you) pushing pseudo-scientific screeds against various forms of equality (Milo Yiannopoulos is the king of this). Many people in this cohort portray themselves online (note: portrayal is everything in this case!) as the ‘logical’ ones, and say ‘I’ll change my mind if you can prove me wrong with facts in a reasonable argument’, and then complain that the real problem is ‘political correctness’, which is stifling their ‘freedom of speech’. On the surface, this looks like a sane line of argument, and seems like one that we should support (who doesn’t like freedom of speech, amiright?). And so this becomes a situation where they force the rest of us who believe in freedom of speech and intellectual diversity to either A) yell at them, thus making them look like the ones with the high ground, or B) try to reason with them, which accidentally normalizes their speech, and puts it into the mainstream. God forbid you actually manage to kick the legs out from under their argument, like I’ve managed to do on forums a few times, because then their buddies tend to try to cyberbully you, or worse if god forbid they dox you and people get your real address.
I really don’t want to make this come off as ad hominen or a judgement on your character, so please forgive me if I’m coming on a little too strong (and without enough evidence! which I do apologize for as well). I do not believe that you are one of these people that I mentioned—I’ve seen your posts, and you are very reasonable, but I strongly worry that Henry is one of these people based on the way he writes and the thoughts being pushed. Once again, I can’t prove this, but I just want to flag it just in case.
I agree: if EA wants to climb the ladder of prestige in the current climate, then best to avoid any crimethink. I only wrote my comments due to a request. EA is trying to have a high positive impact, but it is hamstrung by an establishment media that is disconnected from reality. There is very little that EA can do about this that wouldn’t confront that establishment. However, there are a couple things that EAs can do: stop publicly pushing for leftist partisan causes like open borders, and stop donating to Democrat political campaigns.
Also, it’s worth noting that what I just suggested is a fairly dangerous idea for a variety of reasons. So, by my logic, if the general consensus among everyone is that what I suggested will clearly lead to more harm than good, then I would very strongly suggest down-voting my comment into oblivion and never talking about it again ;)