I feel like you’re trying to equivocate “wrong or heartless” (or “heartless-and-prejudiced,” as I called it elsewhere) with “socially provocative” or “causes outrage to a subset of readers.”
That feels like misdirection.
I see two different issues here:
(1) Are some ideas that cause social backlash still valuable?
(2) Are some ideas shitty and worth condemning?
My answer is yes to both.
When someone expresses a view that belongs into (2), pointing at the existence of (1) isn’t a good defense.
You may be saying that we should be humble and can’t tell the difference, but I think we can. Moral relativism sucks.
FWIW, if I thought we couldn’t tell the difference, then it wouldn’t be obvious to me that we should go for “condemn pretty much nothing” as opposed to “condemn everything that causes controversy.” Both of these seem equally extremely bad.
I see that you’re not quite advocating for “condemn nothing” because you write this bit:
perhaps with some caveats (e.g. that they are the sort of view that a person might honestly come by, as opposed to something invented simply maliciously.)
It depends on what you mean exactly, but I think this may not be going far enough. Some people don’t cult-founder-style invent new beliefs with some ulterior motive (like making money), but the beliefs they “honestly” come to may still be hateful and prejudiced. Also, some people might be aware that there’s a lot of misanthropy and wanting to feel superior in their thinking, but they might be manipulatively pretending to only be interested in “truth-seeking,” especially when talking to impressionable members of the rationality community, where you get lots of social credit for signalling truth-seeking virtues.
To get to the heart of things, do you think Hanania’s views are no worse than the examples you give? If so, I would expect people to say that he’s not actually racist.
However, if they are worse, then I’d say let’s drop the cultural relativism and condemn them.
It seems to me like there’s no disagreement by people familiar with Hanania that his views were worse in the past. That’s a red flag. Some people say he’s changed his views. I’m not per se against giving people second chances, but it seems suspicious to me that someone who admits that they’ve had really shitty racist views in the past now continues to focus on issues where they – even according to other discussion participants here who defend him – still seem racist. Like, why isn’t he trying to educate people on how not to fall victim to a hateful ideology, since he has personal experience with that. It’s hard to come away with “ah, now the motivation is compassion and wanting the best for everyone, when previously it was something dark.” (I’m not saying such changes of heart are impossible, but I don’t view it as likely, given what other commenters are saying.)
Anyway, to comment on your examples:
Singer faced most of the heat for his views on preimplantation diagnostics and disability before EA became a movement. Still, I’d bet that, if EAs had been around back then, many EAs, and especially the ones I most admire and agree with, would’ve come to his defense.
I just skimmed that eugenics article you link to and it seems fine to me, or even good. Also, most of the pushback there from EA forum participants is about the strategy of still using the word “eugenics” instead of using a different word, so many people don’t seem to disagree much with the substance of the article.
In Bostrom’s case, I don’t think anyone thinks that Bostrom’s comments from long ago were a good thing, but there’s a difference between them being awkward and tone-deaf, vs them being hateful or hate-inspired. (And it’s more forgivable for people to be awkward and tone-deaf when they’re young.)
Lastly, on Scott Alexander’s example, whether intelligence differences are at least partly genetic is an empirical question, not a moral one. It might well be influenced by someone having hateful moral views, so it matters where a person’s interest in that sort of issue is coming from. Does it come from a place of hate or wanting to seem superior, or does it come from a desire for truth-seeking and believing that knowing what’s the case makes it easier to help? (And: Does the person make any actual efforts to help disadvantaged groups?) As Scott Alexander points out himself:
Somebody who believes that Mexicans are more criminal than white people might just be collecting crime stats, but we’re suspicious that they might use this to justify an irrational hatred toward Mexicans and desire to discriminate against them. So it’s potentially racist, regardless of whether you attribute it to genetics or culture.
So, all these examples (I think Zach Davis’s writing is more “rationality community” than EA, and I’m not really familiar with it, so I won’t comment on it) seem fine to me.
When I said,
None of the people who were important to EA historically have had hateful or heartless-and-prejudiced views (or, if someone had them secretly, at least they didn’t openly express it).
This wasn’t about, “Can we find some random people (who we otherwise wouldn’t listen to when it comes to other topics) who will be outraged.”
Instead, I meant that we can look at people’s views at the object level and decide whether they’re coming from a place of compassion for everyone and equal consideration of interests, or whether they’re coming from a darker place.
And someone can have wrong views that aren’t hateful:
Many of my extended family members consider the idea that abortion is permissible to be hateful and wrong. I consider their views, in addition to many of their other religious views, to be hateful and wrong.
I’m not sure if you’re using “hateful” here as a weird synonym to “wrong,” or whether your extended relatives have similarities to the Westboro Baptist Church.
Normally, I think of people who are for abortion bans as merely misguided (since they’re often literally misguided about empirical questions, or sometimes they seem to have an inability to move away from rigid-category thinking and not understand the necessity of having a different logic for non-typical examples/edge cases).
When I speak of “hateful,” it’s something more. I then mean that the ideology has an affinity for appealing to people’s darker motivations. I think ideologies like that are properly dangerous, as we’ve seen historically. (And it applies to, e.g., Communism just as well as to racism.)
I agree with you that conferences do very little “vetting” (and find this is okay), but I think the little vetting that they do and should do includes “don’t bring in people who are mouthpieces to ideologies that appeal to people’s dark instincts.” (And also things like, “don’t bring in people who are known to cause harm to others,” whether that’s through sexually predatory behavior or the tendency to form mini-cults around themselves.)
It seems to me like there’s no disagreement by people familiar with Hanania that his views were worse in the past. That’s a red flag. Some people say he’s changed his views. I’m not per se against giving people second chances, but it seems suspicious to me that someone who admits that they’ve had really shitty racist views in the past now continues to focus on issues where they – even according to other discussion participants here who defend him – still seem racist.
Agreed. I think the 2008-10 postings under the Hoste pseudonym are highly relevant insofar as they show a sustained pattern of bigotry during that time. They are just not consistent in my mind with having fallen into error despite even minimally good-faith, truth-seeking behavior combined with major errors in judgment. Sample quotations in this article. Once you get to that point, you may get a second chance at some future time, but I’m not inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt on your second chance:
A person who published statements like the Hoste statements over a period of time, but has reformed, should be on notice that there was something in them that led them to the point of glorifying white nationalism and at least espousing white supremacist beliefs. (I don’t care to read any more of the Hoste writings to be more precise than that.) An actually reformed white nationalist should know to be very cautious in what they write about Hispanic and African-American persons, because they should know that a deep prejudice once resided within them and might still be lurking beneath at some level.
The establishment of clear, sustained bigotry at time-1 would ordinarily justify an inference that any deeply problematic statements at later times are also the result of bigotry unless the evidence suggests otherwise. In contrast, it is relatively more likely that a deeply problematic statement by someone without a past history of bigotry could reflect unconscious (or at least semi-conscious?) racism, a severe but fairly isolated lack of judgment, or other serious issues that are nevertheless more forgivable than outright bigotry.
Appreciate the reply. I don’t have a well-informed opinion about Hanania in particular, and I really don’t care to read enough of his writing to try to get one, so I think I said everything I can say about the topic (e.g. I can’t really speak to whether Hanania’s views are specifically worse than all the examples I think of when I think of EA views that people may find outrageous.)
Under the pseudonym, Hanania argued for eugenics, including the forcible sterilization of everyone with an IQ below 90.[4] He also denounced “race-mixing” and said that white nationalism “is the only hope”.[6] He opposed immigration to the United States, saying that “the IQ and genetic differences between them and native Europeans are real, and assimilation is impossible”. He cited a speech by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, who had used Haiti as an example to argue that black people are incapable of governing themselves.[4]
I agree with you when you said that we can know evil ideas when we see them and rightly condemn them. We don’t have to adopt some sort of generic welcomingness to all ideas, including extremist hate ideologies.
I disagree with you about some of the examples of alleged racism or prejudice or hateful views attributed to people like Nick Bostrom and Scott Alexander. I definitely wouldn’t wave these examples away by saying they “seem fine to me.” I think one thing you’re trying to say is that these examples are very different from someone being overtly and egregiously white supremacist in the worst way like Richard Hanania, and I agree. But I wouldn’t say these examples are “fine”.
It is okay to criticize the views and behaviour of figures perceived to be influential in EA. I think that’s healthy.
I feel like you’re trying to equivocate “wrong or heartless” (or “heartless-and-prejudiced,” as I called it elsewhere) with “socially provocative” or “causes outrage to a subset of readers.”
That feels like misdirection.
I see two different issues here:
(1) Are some ideas that cause social backlash still valuable?
(2) Are some ideas shitty and worth condemning?
My answer is yes to both.
When someone expresses a view that belongs into (2), pointing at the existence of (1) isn’t a good defense.
You may be saying that we should be humble and can’t tell the difference, but I think we can. Moral relativism sucks.
FWIW, if I thought we couldn’t tell the difference, then it wouldn’t be obvious to me that we should go for “condemn pretty much nothing” as opposed to “condemn everything that causes controversy.” Both of these seem equally extremely bad.
I see that you’re not quite advocating for “condemn nothing” because you write this bit:
It depends on what you mean exactly, but I think this may not be going far enough. Some people don’t cult-founder-style invent new beliefs with some ulterior motive (like making money), but the beliefs they “honestly” come to may still be hateful and prejudiced. Also, some people might be aware that there’s a lot of misanthropy and wanting to feel superior in their thinking, but they might be manipulatively pretending to only be interested in “truth-seeking,” especially when talking to impressionable members of the rationality community, where you get lots of social credit for signalling truth-seeking virtues.
To get to the heart of things, do you think Hanania’s views are no worse than the examples you give? If so, I would expect people to say that he’s not actually racist.
However, if they are worse, then I’d say let’s drop the cultural relativism and condemn them.
It seems to me like there’s no disagreement by people familiar with Hanania that his views were worse in the past. That’s a red flag. Some people say he’s changed his views. I’m not per se against giving people second chances, but it seems suspicious to me that someone who admits that they’ve had really shitty racist views in the past now continues to focus on issues where they – even according to other discussion participants here who defend him – still seem racist. Like, why isn’t he trying to educate people on how not to fall victim to a hateful ideology, since he has personal experience with that. It’s hard to come away with “ah, now the motivation is compassion and wanting the best for everyone, when previously it was something dark.” (I’m not saying such changes of heart are impossible, but I don’t view it as likely, given what other commenters are saying.)
Anyway, to comment on your examples:
Singer faced most of the heat for his views on preimplantation diagnostics and disability before EA became a movement. Still, I’d bet that, if EAs had been around back then, many EAs, and especially the ones I most admire and agree with, would’ve come to his defense.
I just skimmed that eugenics article you link to and it seems fine to me, or even good. Also, most of the pushback there from EA forum participants is about the strategy of still using the word “eugenics” instead of using a different word, so many people don’t seem to disagree much with the substance of the article.
In Bostrom’s case, I don’t think anyone thinks that Bostrom’s comments from long ago were a good thing, but there’s a difference between them being awkward and tone-deaf, vs them being hateful or hate-inspired. (And it’s more forgivable for people to be awkward and tone-deaf when they’re young.)
Lastly, on Scott Alexander’s example, whether intelligence differences are at least partly genetic is an empirical question, not a moral one. It might well be influenced by someone having hateful moral views, so it matters where a person’s interest in that sort of issue is coming from. Does it come from a place of hate or wanting to seem superior, or does it come from a desire for truth-seeking and believing that knowing what’s the case makes it easier to help? (And: Does the person make any actual efforts to help disadvantaged groups?) As Scott Alexander points out himself:
So, all these examples (I think Zach Davis’s writing is more “rationality community” than EA, and I’m not really familiar with it, so I won’t comment on it) seem fine to me.
When I said,
This wasn’t about, “Can we find some random people (who we otherwise wouldn’t listen to when it comes to other topics) who will be outraged.”
Instead, I meant that we can look at people’s views at the object level and decide whether they’re coming from a place of compassion for everyone and equal consideration of interests, or whether they’re coming from a darker place.
And someone can have wrong views that aren’t hateful:
I’m not sure if you’re using “hateful” here as a weird synonym to “wrong,” or whether your extended relatives have similarities to the Westboro Baptist Church.
Normally, I think of people who are for abortion bans as merely misguided (since they’re often literally misguided about empirical questions, or sometimes they seem to have an inability to move away from rigid-category thinking and not understand the necessity of having a different logic for non-typical examples/edge cases).
When I speak of “hateful,” it’s something more. I then mean that the ideology has an affinity for appealing to people’s darker motivations. I think ideologies like that are properly dangerous, as we’ve seen historically. (And it applies to, e.g., Communism just as well as to racism.)
I agree with you that conferences do very little “vetting” (and find this is okay), but I think the little vetting that they do and should do includes “don’t bring in people who are mouthpieces to ideologies that appeal to people’s dark instincts.” (And also things like, “don’t bring in people who are known to cause harm to others,” whether that’s through sexually predatory behavior or the tendency to form mini-cults around themselves.)
Agreed. I think the 2008-10 postings under the Hoste pseudonym are highly relevant insofar as they show a sustained pattern of bigotry during that time. They are just not consistent in my mind with having fallen into error despite even minimally good-faith, truth-seeking behavior combined with major errors in judgment. Sample quotations in this article. Once you get to that point, you may get a second chance at some future time, but I’m not inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt on your second chance:
A person who published statements like the Hoste statements over a period of time, but has reformed, should be on notice that there was something in them that led them to the point of glorifying white nationalism and at least espousing white supremacist beliefs. (I don’t care to read any more of the Hoste writings to be more precise than that.) An actually reformed white nationalist should know to be very cautious in what they write about Hispanic and African-American persons, because they should know that a deep prejudice once resided within them and might still be lurking beneath at some level.
The establishment of clear, sustained bigotry at time-1 would ordinarily justify an inference that any deeply problematic statements at later times are also the result of bigotry unless the evidence suggests otherwise. In contrast, it is relatively more likely that a deeply problematic statement by someone without a past history of bigotry could reflect unconscious (or at least semi-conscious?) racism, a severe but fairly isolated lack of judgment, or other serious issues that are nevertheless more forgivable than outright bigotry.
Appreciate the reply. I don’t have a well-informed opinion about Hanania in particular, and I really don’t care to read enough of his writing to try to get one, so I think I said everything I can say about the topic (e.g. I can’t really speak to whether Hanania’s views are specifically worse than all the examples I think of when I think of EA views that people may find outrageous.)
Wikipedia:
See this comment for a more detailed survey of Hanania’s white supremacy.
I agree with you when you said that we can know evil ideas when we see them and rightly condemn them. We don’t have to adopt some sort of generic welcomingness to all ideas, including extremist hate ideologies.
I disagree with you about some of the examples of alleged racism or prejudice or hateful views attributed to people like Nick Bostrom and Scott Alexander. I definitely wouldn’t wave these examples away by saying they “seem fine to me.” I think one thing you’re trying to say is that these examples are very different from someone being overtly and egregiously white supremacist in the worst way like Richard Hanania, and I agree. But I wouldn’t say these examples are “fine”.
It is okay to criticize the views and behaviour of figures perceived to be influential in EA. I think that’s healthy.