I don’t object to this activity. I found it really interesting to read what others think and can’t say. Still, I think there are times when it’s in a community’s best interest to self-censor, or at least not to post their least acceptable views online.
I agree with you; I just want to point clearly toward the end of the spectrum that is “a healthy intellectual community” rather than “a unified voting block that doesn’t allow its members to step out of line”.
The political analogy was an example; it was not meant to say that standard political constraints should apply to EA. The thought applies to any social movement, e.g. for people involved in environmentalism, radical exchange or libertarianism. If I were a libertarian and someone came to me saying “why don’t we run a poll of libertarians on opinions they are scared to air publicly and then publish those opinions online for the world to see”, I think it would be pretty obvious that this would be an extremely bad idea.
I don’t object to this activity. I found it really interesting to read what others think and can’t say. Still, I think there are times when it’s in a community’s best interest to self-censor, or at least not to post their least acceptable views online.
This post actively encourages people to post their least acceptable views online, so seems bad by this argument.
I agree with you; I just want to point clearly toward the end of the spectrum that is “a healthy intellectual community” rather than “a unified voting block that doesn’t allow its members to step out of line”.
The political analogy was an example; it was not meant to say that standard political constraints should apply to EA. The thought applies to any social movement, e.g. for people involved in environmentalism, radical exchange or libertarianism. If I were a libertarian and someone came to me saying “why don’t we run a poll of libertarians on opinions they are scared to air publicly and then publish those opinions online for the world to see”, I think it would be pretty obvious that this would be an extremely bad idea.