I don’t respond or read fully posts that are this much longer than my posts.
Allowing debate of, e.g., white supremacy on the EA Forum, besides being simply off-topic in most cases, creates a no-win situation for the people whose rights and value are being debated and for other people who care a lot about them. If you engage in the debate, it will exhaust you and distress you, which your interlocutors may very well enjoy. If you avoid the debate or debate a bit and then disengage, this can create the impression that your views can’t be reasonably defended. It can also create the impression that your interlocutors’ views are the dominant ones in the community, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (See: “Nazi death spiral”.)
Let’s note that white supremacy is not regularly discussed on the EA forum and you, yes literally you, are the cause of most of this previous discussion. 3 or 4 times now I have seen people say they didn’t see this discussion until they read this post.
I am not particularly worried about people thinking that sterilisation is a good solution, for instance. Perhaps if there was a post every week arguing for it, then I would want to talk about that.
I get that there are people who don’t want this to be a space where these ideas are regularly discussed. There are large costs to them, similar to the costs around engaging with with Bostrom’s email. These costs are real. I sense people want confidence that others will join them in pushing back when stuff like this happens.
I don’t know how to give people that confidence, except to say, I see the costs of othering groups in society. How what starts as “wouldn’t it be convenient if” can end up as “let’s put them in camps”. I don’t really know how to convey this to you, but a part of me is very concerned by this.
But again, right know, the equilibrium feels okay and not a high priority to change. Let’s come back to it in 6 months.
White supremacists and Nazis disguise their views to make them seem more benign and acceptable, but you can often find connections to overt Nazism and/or white supremacy without looking super hard. Ives Parr disguised his views and I showed the connections to overt Nazism and white supremacy in the OP.
Expecting people to debate white supremacists and Nazis is unfair and harmful, as well as damaging to the community. Just ban them.
The EA community has more racist behaviour than I can feel proud of. This makes me sad. I suspect a survey of people of colour with experience of EA would confirm EA has a racism problem.
Something else I haven’t mentioned about preventing the Nazi death spiral and why “just debate the Nazis” is not an adequate way to prevent the Nazi death spiral:
If they don’t get banned for posting Nazi stuff, the Nazis can become part of the community by posting other, more normal EA-type stuff. People can read and upvote and comment on the normal stuff without knowing about the posters’ Nazi affiliations or beliefs. Then, you have users with a lot of karma who are Nazis, and people will look around at the EA community and say, “Hmm, there sure are a lot of Nazis here!” and then leave.
I don’t think effective altruism is a covert racist eugenics cult like some critics seem to claim, but there are people out there who would love to turn effective altruism into a racist eugenics cult and I don’t think we should hand them our movement on a silver platter.
I am not particularly worried about people thinking that sterilisation is a good solution, for instance. Perhaps if there was a post every week arguing for it, then I would want to talk about that.
I think that what the voting dynamics may suggest would be a bigger problem than the frequency of posts like Mr. Parr’s per se. His lead post got to +24 at one point (and stayed there for a while), while the post on which we are commenting sits at −12 (despite my +9 strong upvote). If I were in a group for which people were advocating for sterilization, and had good reason to think a significant fraction of the community supported that view, it would be cold comfort that the posts advocating for my sterilization only came by every few months!
I don’t respond or read fully posts that are this much longer than my posts.
Let’s note that white supremacy is not regularly discussed on the EA forum and you, yes literally you, are the cause of most of this previous discussion. 3 or 4 times now I have seen people say they didn’t see this discussion until they read this post.
I am not particularly worried about people thinking that sterilisation is a good solution, for instance. Perhaps if there was a post every week arguing for it, then I would want to talk about that.
I get that there are people who don’t want this to be a space where these ideas are regularly discussed. There are large costs to them, similar to the costs around engaging with with Bostrom’s email. These costs are real. I sense people want confidence that others will join them in pushing back when stuff like this happens.
I don’t know how to give people that confidence, except to say, I see the costs of othering groups in society. How what starts as “wouldn’t it be convenient if” can end up as “let’s put them in camps”. I don’t really know how to convey this to you, but a part of me is very concerned by this.
But again, right know, the equilibrium feels okay and not a high priority to change. Let’s come back to it in 6 months.
A short summary of my above comment:
White supremacists and Nazis disguise their views to make them seem more benign and acceptable, but you can often find connections to overt Nazism and/or white supremacy without looking super hard. Ives Parr disguised his views and I showed the connections to overt Nazism and white supremacy in the OP.
Expecting people to debate white supremacists and Nazis is unfair and harmful, as well as damaging to the community. Just ban them.
The EA community has more racist behaviour than I can feel proud of. This makes me sad. I suspect a survey of people of colour with experience of EA would confirm EA has a racism problem.
Something else I haven’t mentioned about preventing the Nazi death spiral and why “just debate the Nazis” is not an adequate way to prevent the Nazi death spiral:
If they don’t get banned for posting Nazi stuff, the Nazis can become part of the community by posting other, more normal EA-type stuff. People can read and upvote and comment on the normal stuff without knowing about the posters’ Nazi affiliations or beliefs. Then, you have users with a lot of karma who are Nazis, and people will look around at the EA community and say, “Hmm, there sure are a lot of Nazis here!” and then leave.
I don’t think effective altruism is a covert racist eugenics cult like some critics seem to claim, but there are people out there who would love to turn effective altruism into a racist eugenics cult and I don’t think we should hand them our movement on a silver platter.
Ban the Nazis.
I think that what the voting dynamics may suggest would be a bigger problem than the frequency of posts like Mr. Parr’s per se. His lead post got to +24 at one point (and stayed there for a while), while the post on which we are commenting sits at −12 (despite my +9 strong upvote). If I were in a group for which people were advocating for sterilization, and had good reason to think a significant fraction of the community supported that view, it would be cold comfort that the posts advocating for my sterilization only came by every few months!