John’s comment points to another interesting tension.
CSER was indeed intended to be pluralistic and to provide space for heterodox approaches. And the general ‘vibe’ John gestures towards (I take it he’s not intending to be fully literal here—please correct me if I’m misinterpreting, John) is certainly more present at CSER than at other Xrisk orgs. It is also a vibe that is regularly rejected as a majority position in internal CSER full-group discussions. However, some groups and lineages are much more activist and evangelical in their approach than others. Hence they crowd out other heterodoxies and create an outsized external footprint, which can further make it difficult for other heterodoxies to thrive (whether in a centre or community). The CSER-type heterodoxy John and (I suspect) much of EA is familiar with is one that much of CSER is indifferent to, or disagrees with to various degrees. Other heterodoxies are… quieter.
In creating a pluralistic ERS, some diversities (as discussed by others) will be excluded from the get go (perhaps for good reasons, I do not offer comment on this). Of those included/tolerated, some will be far better-equipped with the tools to assert themselves. Disagreements are good, but the field on which disagreements are debated is often not an even one. Figuring out how to navigate this would be one of the key challenges for the approach proposed, I would think.
in response to your first point, I think one of the hopes of creating a pluralistic xrisk community is so that different parts of the community actually understand what work and persepctives each are doing, rather than either characturing them/misrepresenting them (for example, I’ve heard people outside EA assuming all EA XRisk work is basically just what Bostrom says) or just not knowing what other have to say. Ultimately, I think the workshop that this statement came out of did this really well, and so I hope if there is desire to move towards a more pluralistic community (which, perhaps from this forum, there isn’t) then we would better understand each others persepctives and why we disagree, and gain value from this disagreement. One example here is I think I personally have gained huge value from my discussions with John Halstead on climate, and really trying to understand his position.
I agree on the last paragraph, and is definitely a tension we will have to try anda resolve over time. This is one of the reasons we spoke about “we suggest that the power to confer support for different approaches should be distributed among the community rather than allocated by a few actors and funders, as no single individual can adequately manifest the epistemic and ethical diversity we deem necessary.” which would hopefully go someway to make sure that more forms of pluralism can assert themselves. Obviously, though, this won’t be perfect, and we will have to create spaces where voices that may previously not have been heard, because they don’t have all the money or aren’t loud and assertive, would get heard; this will be hard, and will definitely be difficult for someone like me who is clearly quite loud and likes to get my opinion out there.
NB: (I would also like to comment, and I really don’t want to be antagonistic to John as I do deeply respect him, but I do think his representation of ‘CSER-type heterodoxy’ or at least how he’s framed it with his two chief examples being me and Luke seems to me to be a misrepresentation. I know this may be arguing back too much, but given he’s said I believe something I don’t, I think its important to put the record straight (I’d hope its unintentional, although we have actually spoken a lot about my views))
John’s comment points to another interesting tension.
CSER was indeed intended to be pluralistic and to provide space for heterodox approaches. And the general ‘vibe’ John gestures towards (I take it he’s not intending to be fully literal here—please correct me if I’m misinterpreting, John) is certainly more present at CSER than at other Xrisk orgs. It is also a vibe that is regularly rejected as a majority position in internal CSER full-group discussions. However, some groups and lineages are much more activist and evangelical in their approach than others. Hence they crowd out other heterodoxies and create an outsized external footprint, which can further make it difficult for other heterodoxies to thrive (whether in a centre or community). The CSER-type heterodoxy John and (I suspect) much of EA is familiar with is one that much of CSER is indifferent to, or disagrees with to various degrees. Other heterodoxies are… quieter.
In creating a pluralistic ERS, some diversities (as discussed by others) will be excluded from the get go (perhaps for good reasons, I do not offer comment on this). Of those included/tolerated, some will be far better-equipped with the tools to assert themselves. Disagreements are good, but the field on which disagreements are debated is often not an even one. Figuring out how to navigate this would be one of the key challenges for the approach proposed, I would think.
in response to your first point, I think one of the hopes of creating a pluralistic xrisk community is so that different parts of the community actually understand what work and persepctives each are doing, rather than either characturing them/misrepresenting them (for example, I’ve heard people outside EA assuming all EA XRisk work is basically just what Bostrom says) or just not knowing what other have to say. Ultimately, I think the workshop that this statement came out of did this really well, and so I hope if there is desire to move towards a more pluralistic community (which, perhaps from this forum, there isn’t) then we would better understand each others persepctives and why we disagree, and gain value from this disagreement. One example here is I think I personally have gained huge value from my discussions with John Halstead on climate, and really trying to understand his position.
I agree on the last paragraph, and is definitely a tension we will have to try anda resolve over time. This is one of the reasons we spoke about “we suggest that the power to confer support for different approaches should be distributed among the community rather than allocated by a few actors and funders, as no single individual can adequately manifest the epistemic and ethical diversity we deem necessary.” which would hopefully go someway to make sure that more forms of pluralism can assert themselves. Obviously, though, this won’t be perfect, and we will have to create spaces where voices that may previously not have been heard, because they don’t have all the money or aren’t loud and assertive, would get heard; this will be hard, and will definitely be difficult for someone like me who is clearly quite loud and likes to get my opinion out there.
NB: (I would also like to comment, and I really don’t want to be antagonistic to John as I do deeply respect him, but I do think his representation of ‘CSER-type heterodoxy’ or at least how he’s framed it with his two chief examples being me and Luke seems to me to be a misrepresentation. I know this may be arguing back too much, but given he’s said I believe something I don’t, I think its important to put the record straight (I’d hope its unintentional, although we have actually spoken a lot about my views))