Sorry but I won’t rescind my comment. I don’t know whether it is conscious lack of transparency or not, but it is not transparent, in my opinion. This is also indicated by Quinn above, and in Larks’ comment. The dialectic on these posts goes:
A categorical statement is made that ‘diversity is a strength’ or ‘diversity of all kinds is always good’.
Myself or someone else presents a counterexample—eg note there are lots of homophobes, nationalists, Trump supporters etc who are underrepresented in EA
The OP concedes in the comments that diversity of some kinds is sometimes bad, or doesn’t respond.
A new post is released some time later repeating 1.
I have made point 2 to you several times on previous posts, but in this post you again make a categorical claim that ‘diversity is a strength’ and that we need to move towards greater pluralism, when you actually endorse ‘diversity is sometimes a strength, sometimes a weakness’. Like, in this post you say we need to take on ‘non-Western-perspectives’, but among very popular non-Western perspectives are homophobia and the idea that China should invade Taiwan, which you immediately disavow in the comments.
But you here throw the baby out with the bathwater; its a deeply unsastifying solution when we have a good reason to have pluralism of method, vision of the future, epistemology and also greater diversities of many different factors to suggest that just because it may be possible to justify the inclusion of those you don’t like on this logic, then we have to throw out the entire argument full stop.
I think the issue here is that it is incumbent upon you to provide criteria for how much diversity we want, otherwise your post has no substantive content because everyone already agrees that some forms of diversity are good and some are bad. The main post says/strongly gives the impression that more diversity of all kinds is always good because there is something about diversity itself that is good. In the comments, you walk back from this position.
Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that diversity is being used to defend the proposition that EA should engage in non-merit-based hiring that is biased with respect to race, gender, ability, nation, and socioeconomic status.
all of this entails greater geographic, socio-economic, cultural, gender, racial and ability diversity, both in terms of those who may have interest in being a part of the community, and those whom the community may learn from.
I think this would be unfair, and strongly disagree that this would ‘create a culture where a genuine proliferation of evidence-based insights can occur’. The diversity considerations you mention in the post also cannot defend it since they cannot distinguish good and bad forms of diversity.
My claim was “Folding EA into extinction rebellion, which as I understand is the main aim of heterodox CSER-type approaches in EA”. I would guess that you and (eg) Kemp would be happy with this, for instance. CSER researchers like Dasgupta have collaborated papers with Paul Ehrlich who I think would also endorse this vibe, so I would guess Dasgupta is at least sympathetic. I basically think what I said is broadly correct, and I don’t think there is much reason for me to correct the record. I would actually be interested in some sort of statement/poll from different groups in x-risk studies about their beliefs about the world.
Sorry to revisit this, and I understand if you don’t. I must apologies if my previous comments felt a bit defensive from my side, as I do feel your statements towards me were untrue, but I think I have more clarity on the perspective you’ve come from and some of the possible baggage brought to this conversation, and I’m truly sorry if I’ve be ignorant of relevant context.
I think this comment is more going to address the overall conversation between us two on here, and where I perceive it to have gone, although I may be wrong, and I am open to corrections.
Firstly, I think you have assumed this statement is essentially a product of CSER, perhaps because it has come from me, who was a visit at CSER, and has been similarly critical of your work in a way that I know some at CSER have. [I should say, for the record on this, I do think your work is of high quality, and I hope you’ve never got the impression that I don’t. Perhaps some of my criticisms last year towards the review process your report went through felt poor quality (and I can’t remember what they were and may not stand by them today), but if so, I am sorry.] Nonetheless, I think its really important to keep in mind that this statement is absolutely not a ‘CSER’ statement; I’d like to remind you of the signatories, and whilst every signatory doesn’t agree with everything, I hope you can see why I got so defensive when you claimed that the signatories weren’t being transparent and actually attempting to just make EA another left-wing movement. I tried really hard to get a plurality of voices in this document, which is why such an accusation offended me, but ultimately I shouldn’t have got defensive over this, and I must apologise.
Secondly, on that point, I think we may have been talking about different things when you said ‘heterodox CSER approaches to EA.’ Certainly, I think Ehrlich and much of what he has called for is deeply morally reprehensible, and the capacity for ideas like his to gain ground is a genuine danger of pluralistic xrisk, because it is harder to police which ideas are acceptable or not (similarly, I have recieved criticism because this letter fails to call out eugenics explicitly, another danger). Nonetheless, I think we can trust as a more pluralistic community develops it would better navigate where the bounds of acceptable or unacceptable views and behaviours are, and that this would be better than us simply suggesting this now. Maybe this is a crux we/the signatories and much of the commens section disagree on. I think we can push for more pluralism and diversity in response to our situation whilst trusting that the more pluralistic ERS community will police how far this can go. You disagree and think we need to lay this out now otherwise it will either a) end up with anything goes, including views we find moral reprehensible or b) will mean EA is hijaked by the left. I think the second argument is weaker, particularly because this statement is not about EA, but about building a broader field of Existential Risk Studies, although perhaps you see this as a bit of a trojan horse. I understand I am missing some of the historical context that makes you think it is, but I hope that the signatories list may be enough to show you that I really do mean what I say when I call for pluralism.
I also must apologise if the call for retraction of certain parts of your comment seemed uncollegiate or disrespectful to you; this was certainly not my intention. I, however, felt that your painting of my views was incorrect, and thought you may, in light of this, be happy to change; although given you are not happy to retract, I assume you are either trying to make the argument that these are in fact my underlying beliefs (or that I am being dishonest, although I have no reason to suspect you would say this!).
I think there are a few more substantive points we disagree on, but to me this seems like the crux of the more heated discussion, and I must apologise it got so heated
Thanks for these comments and for the discussion. I do genuinely appreciate discussing things with you—I appreciate the directness and willingness to engage. I also appreciate that given how direct we both are and how rude I sometimes am/seem on here, it can create tension, and that is mainly my fault here.
I think my cruxes are:
I suppose my broader point is that EA is <1% of social movements ‘trying to do social good’ in some broad sense. >98% of the remainder is focused on broadly ‘do what sounds good’ vibes, with a left wing valence, i.e. work on climate change, rich country education, homelessness, identity politics type stuff etc. Over the years, I have seen many proposals to make EA more like the remainder, or even just make it exactly the same as the remainder, in the name of diversity or pluralism.
This strikes me as an Orwellian use of those terms. I don’t think it would in any way create more pluralism or diversity to have EA shift in the direction of doing that kind of stuff. EA offers a distinctive perspective and I think it is valuable to have that in the marketplace of ideas to actually provide a challenge to what remains the overwhelmingly dominant form of thinking about ‘trying to do good’.
I also view the >98% as very epistemically closed; I don’t think they are a good advert for an epistemic promised land for EAs.
There is a powerful social force that I do not understand which means that every organisation that is not explicitly right wing eventually becomes left wing, and I have seen that dynamic at play repeatedly over the last 13 years, and I would view this as the latest example. EA is not focused on areas I would view as particularly left or right valenced at the moment.
I am also very opposed to efforts to make hiring decisions according to demographic considerations. I think the instrumental considerations enumerated for doing this are usually weak on closer examination, and I think the commonsense idea that people who do best on work-related hiring criteria will be best at their job is fundamentally correct and the reason it is fundamentally correct are obvious. The idea that implicit bias against demographic groups could be driving demographic skews in EA also strikes me as extremely implausible. It is violently at odds with my lived experience of being on hiring panels or knowing about them at other organisations, and there being a very strong explicit bias against the typical EA demographic. The idea that implicit bias could be strong enough to overcome this is not credible.
I am aware that I am setting my precious social capital alight in making these arguments (which is, I think, a lesson in itself)
Once again, I think the accusation that we are not being transparent is deeply disingenuous.
If you agree that saying ‘diversity is a strength’ is equivalent to ‘diversity is always a strength and there are no problems increasing diversity in anyway then I can see your concern; I’m pretty confused how this is your assumption of what we mean, and to me is far from the common usage of the phrase. But yes, I agree even if our epistemic situation demands diversity, there are ways this could go wrong, and its not an easy problem ‘where the tent stops’, and whilst it is a very important conversation to have and to negotiate, I too often think that having this conversation in response to any calls to diversify ends up doing much more harm than good.
Once again, these post is not talking about EA, and I’m not sure it’s particularly advocating for ‘non-merit based’ practices (some signatories may agree, some may not). One example of initiatives that could be done to increase demograohic diversity are efforts like magnify mentoring, or doing more outreach in developing countries, or funding initiatives in a broader geographic distribution, or even improving the advertising of projects and job positions. But sure, if we think increasing demographic diversity is important, we might want to have a conversation about other things that can be done.
Also, much of the diversity we speak about is about pluralism of method, core assumptions etc, which only have something to do with ’merit’if you are judging from already a very particular perspective, and it is having this singular perspective is one of the things we are arguing against.
On your final point, you have definitely entirely misrepresentation my position and I am shocked from the conversations we have had that you would come to this conclusion about my work. I’m also pretty surprised this would be your conclusion of Luke’s work as well, which has included everything from biosecurity work for the WHO, work on AI governance and work on climate change, but I don’t know how much of his stuff your reading. I can safely say Luke disagrees that ERS should basically just be XR. I know far less about Dasgupta’s work. Also, i really don’t understand how we can be seen as fully representative of CSER-style xrisk work either. I don’t quite understand how you can claim people hold beliefs, be counteracted, then fail to give evidence for your point whilst maintaining that you are right.
and to me is far from the common usage of the phrase
It’s pretty lowest common denominator to say “you should infer that we mean the good stuff and not the bad stuff, since we all intuitively agree on commonsensical differences between good and bad”. Affordable housing, degrowth, etc. Diversity doesn’t have to be one of those!
Sometimes “currently we should have more of this rather than less, there will be (non-edge) cases where the cost of more is worth it” can be reasonably obvious, even if it’s not obvious how much more, or what the least costly way to get more is, and for some specific proposals its unclear whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
Sorry but I won’t rescind my comment. I don’t know whether it is conscious lack of transparency or not, but it is not transparent, in my opinion. This is also indicated by Quinn above, and in Larks’ comment. The dialectic on these posts goes:
A categorical statement is made that ‘diversity is a strength’ or ‘diversity of all kinds is always good’.
Myself or someone else presents a counterexample—eg note there are lots of homophobes, nationalists, Trump supporters etc who are underrepresented in EA
The OP concedes in the comments that diversity of some kinds is sometimes bad, or doesn’t respond.
A new post is released some time later repeating 1.
I have made point 2 to you several times on previous posts, but in this post you again make a categorical claim that ‘diversity is a strength’ and that we need to move towards greater pluralism, when you actually endorse ‘diversity is sometimes a strength, sometimes a weakness’. Like, in this post you say we need to take on ‘non-Western-perspectives’, but among very popular non-Western perspectives are homophobia and the idea that China should invade Taiwan, which you immediately disavow in the comments.
I think the issue here is that it is incumbent upon you to provide criteria for how much diversity we want, otherwise your post has no substantive content because everyone already agrees that some forms of diversity are good and some are bad. The main post says/strongly gives the impression that more diversity of all kinds is always good because there is something about diversity itself that is good. In the comments, you walk back from this position.
Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that diversity is being used to defend the proposition that EA should engage in non-merit-based hiring that is biased with respect to race, gender, ability, nation, and socioeconomic status.
I think this would be unfair, and strongly disagree that this would ‘create a culture where a genuine proliferation of evidence-based insights can occur’. The diversity considerations you mention in the post also cannot defend it since they cannot distinguish good and bad forms of diversity.
My claim was “Folding EA into extinction rebellion, which as I understand is the main aim of heterodox CSER-type approaches in EA”. I would guess that you and (eg) Kemp would be happy with this, for instance. CSER researchers like Dasgupta have collaborated papers with Paul Ehrlich who I think would also endorse this vibe, so I would guess Dasgupta is at least sympathetic. I basically think what I said is broadly correct, and I don’t think there is much reason for me to correct the record. I would actually be interested in some sort of statement/poll from different groups in x-risk studies about their beliefs about the world.
Hi John,
Sorry to revisit this, and I understand if you don’t. I must apologies if my previous comments felt a bit defensive from my side, as I do feel your statements towards me were untrue, but I think I have more clarity on the perspective you’ve come from and some of the possible baggage brought to this conversation, and I’m truly sorry if I’ve be ignorant of relevant context.
I think this comment is more going to address the overall conversation between us two on here, and where I perceive it to have gone, although I may be wrong, and I am open to corrections.
Firstly, I think you have assumed this statement is essentially a product of CSER, perhaps because it has come from me, who was a visit at CSER, and has been similarly critical of your work in a way that I know some at CSER have. [I should say, for the record on this, I do think your work is of high quality, and I hope you’ve never got the impression that I don’t. Perhaps some of my criticisms last year towards the review process your report went through felt poor quality (and I can’t remember what they were and may not stand by them today), but if so, I am sorry.] Nonetheless, I think its really important to keep in mind that this statement is absolutely not a ‘CSER’ statement; I’d like to remind you of the signatories, and whilst every signatory doesn’t agree with everything, I hope you can see why I got so defensive when you claimed that the signatories weren’t being transparent and actually attempting to just make EA another left-wing movement. I tried really hard to get a plurality of voices in this document, which is why such an accusation offended me, but ultimately I shouldn’t have got defensive over this, and I must apologise.
Secondly, on that point, I think we may have been talking about different things when you said ‘heterodox CSER approaches to EA.’ Certainly, I think Ehrlich and much of what he has called for is deeply morally reprehensible, and the capacity for ideas like his to gain ground is a genuine danger of pluralistic xrisk, because it is harder to police which ideas are acceptable or not (similarly, I have recieved criticism because this letter fails to call out eugenics explicitly, another danger). Nonetheless, I think we can trust as a more pluralistic community develops it would better navigate where the bounds of acceptable or unacceptable views and behaviours are, and that this would be better than us simply suggesting this now. Maybe this is a crux we/the signatories and much of the commens section disagree on. I think we can push for more pluralism and diversity in response to our situation whilst trusting that the more pluralistic ERS community will police how far this can go. You disagree and think we need to lay this out now otherwise it will either a) end up with anything goes, including views we find moral reprehensible or b) will mean EA is hijaked by the left. I think the second argument is weaker, particularly because this statement is not about EA, but about building a broader field of Existential Risk Studies, although perhaps you see this as a bit of a trojan horse. I understand I am missing some of the historical context that makes you think it is, but I hope that the signatories list may be enough to show you that I really do mean what I say when I call for pluralism.
I also must apologise if the call for retraction of certain parts of your comment seemed uncollegiate or disrespectful to you; this was certainly not my intention. I, however, felt that your painting of my views was incorrect, and thought you may, in light of this, be happy to change; although given you are not happy to retract, I assume you are either trying to make the argument that these are in fact my underlying beliefs (or that I am being dishonest, although I have no reason to suspect you would say this!).
I think there are a few more substantive points we disagree on, but to me this seems like the crux of the more heated discussion, and I must apologise it got so heated
Thanks for these comments and for the discussion. I do genuinely appreciate discussing things with you—I appreciate the directness and willingness to engage. I also appreciate that given how direct we both are and how rude I sometimes am/seem on here, it can create tension, and that is mainly my fault here.
I think my cruxes are:
I suppose my broader point is that EA is <1% of social movements ‘trying to do social good’ in some broad sense. >98% of the remainder is focused on broadly ‘do what sounds good’ vibes, with a left wing valence, i.e. work on climate change, rich country education, homelessness, identity politics type stuff etc. Over the years, I have seen many proposals to make EA more like the remainder, or even just make it exactly the same as the remainder, in the name of diversity or pluralism.
This strikes me as an Orwellian use of those terms. I don’t think it would in any way create more pluralism or diversity to have EA shift in the direction of doing that kind of stuff. EA offers a distinctive perspective and I think it is valuable to have that in the marketplace of ideas to actually provide a challenge to what remains the overwhelmingly dominant form of thinking about ‘trying to do good’.
I also view the >98% as very epistemically closed; I don’t think they are a good advert for an epistemic promised land for EAs.
There is a powerful social force that I do not understand which means that every organisation that is not explicitly right wing eventually becomes left wing, and I have seen that dynamic at play repeatedly over the last 13 years, and I would view this as the latest example. EA is not focused on areas I would view as particularly left or right valenced at the moment.
I am also very opposed to efforts to make hiring decisions according to demographic considerations. I think the instrumental considerations enumerated for doing this are usually weak on closer examination, and I think the commonsense idea that people who do best on work-related hiring criteria will be best at their job is fundamentally correct and the reason it is fundamentally correct are obvious. The idea that implicit bias against demographic groups could be driving demographic skews in EA also strikes me as extremely implausible. It is violently at odds with my lived experience of being on hiring panels or knowing about them at other organisations, and there being a very strong explicit bias against the typical EA demographic. The idea that implicit bias could be strong enough to overcome this is not credible.
I am aware that I am setting my precious social capital alight in making these arguments (which is, I think, a lesson in itself)
Once again, I think the accusation that we are not being transparent is deeply disingenuous.
If you agree that saying ‘diversity is a strength’ is equivalent to ‘diversity is always a strength and there are no problems increasing diversity in anyway then I can see your concern; I’m pretty confused how this is your assumption of what we mean, and to me is far from the common usage of the phrase. But yes, I agree even if our epistemic situation demands diversity, there are ways this could go wrong, and its not an easy problem ‘where the tent stops’, and whilst it is a very important conversation to have and to negotiate, I too often think that having this conversation in response to any calls to diversify ends up doing much more harm than good.
Once again, these post is not talking about EA, and I’m not sure it’s particularly advocating for ‘non-merit based’ practices (some signatories may agree, some may not). One example of initiatives that could be done to increase demograohic diversity are efforts like magnify mentoring, or doing more outreach in developing countries, or funding initiatives in a broader geographic distribution, or even improving the advertising of projects and job positions. But sure, if we think increasing demographic diversity is important, we might want to have a conversation about other things that can be done.
Also, much of the diversity we speak about is about pluralism of method, core assumptions etc, which only have something to do with ’merit’if you are judging from already a very particular perspective, and it is having this singular perspective is one of the things we are arguing against.
On your final point, you have definitely entirely misrepresentation my position and I am shocked from the conversations we have had that you would come to this conclusion about my work. I’m also pretty surprised this would be your conclusion of Luke’s work as well, which has included everything from biosecurity work for the WHO, work on AI governance and work on climate change, but I don’t know how much of his stuff your reading. I can safely say Luke disagrees that ERS should basically just be XR. I know far less about Dasgupta’s work. Also, i really don’t understand how we can be seen as fully representative of CSER-style xrisk work either. I don’t quite understand how you can claim people hold beliefs, be counteracted, then fail to give evidence for your point whilst maintaining that you are right.
It’s pretty lowest common denominator to say “you should infer that we mean the good stuff and not the bad stuff, since we all intuitively agree on commonsensical differences between good and bad”. Affordable housing, degrowth, etc. Diversity doesn’t have to be one of those!
Sometimes “currently we should have more of this rather than less, there will be (non-edge) cases where the cost of more is worth it” can be reasonably obvious, even if it’s not obvious how much more, or what the least costly way to get more is, and for some specific proposals its unclear whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
Hi John Since I’ve corrected you that neither me nor Luke would agree with your characterisation of our positions, would you mind correcting this?