I think a useful context for the above comment is that the same user wrote this post advocating for “voluntary abortion reduction” as an EA cause area.
Imagine if there was a post encouraging composting on the forum, and Brian Tomasik wrote a comment pointing out that well-meaning efforts to compost can potentially be quite harmful, under moral views where we care about insects.
And then someone replied to Brian’s comment, “Some useful context is that Brian is the guy who wrote that post saying EAs should actually care about bugs!”
Sure, I guess that’s relevant, but if I read that reply to Brian, I would read a connotation that “we should ignore this guy, because has different values on moral circle expansion than we do”. (Not saying this is your actual intention, but I feel that it could be read that way.)
It’s not about different opinions of what and who we should care about, it’s about practical agendas that are taken to follow from that even though they don’t necessarily. In general, being part of an agenda is important context to view a statement in.
In your example, I’d agree with Tomasik we ought to care about insects to some degree. I think his advocated agenda of avoiding expanding natural habitats (or composting, although I haven’t run into that one), does not follow and is a bad idea morally and practically.
The same thing here. I think the question of whether we should care about fetuses and future people is a valid one, but an agenda trying to disempower women is very much not the right conclusion, and it’s not just neutral under worldviews that seem sensible to me, but rather actively harmful.
That’s a fair consideration, but I don’t think it really affects whether or not we should open-mindedly consider points raised by others who could be said to have an “agenda” we disagree with.
Following the example, let’s say someone replied to Brian’s comment, “Some useful context is that Brian wrote this post advocating for opposing rainforest preservation”. That’s true, and Brian could indeed be (uncharitably) said to “have an agenda trying to disempower environmentalism”.
If someone else read that reply, they could be forgiven for concluding “whew, glad someone pointed out that grifter’s nefarious true purpose!” I think that conclusion would undermine anything valuable Brian actually has to say.
I think a useful context for the above comment is that the same user wrote this post advocating for “voluntary abortion reduction” as an EA cause area.
Imagine if there was a post encouraging composting on the forum, and Brian Tomasik wrote a comment pointing out that well-meaning efforts to compost can potentially be quite harmful, under moral views where we care about insects.
And then someone replied to Brian’s comment, “Some useful context is that Brian is the guy who wrote that post saying EAs should actually care about bugs!”
Sure, I guess that’s relevant, but if I read that reply to Brian, I would read a connotation that “we should ignore this guy, because has different values on moral circle expansion than we do”. (Not saying this is your actual intention, but I feel that it could be read that way.)
It’s not about different opinions of what and who we should care about, it’s about practical agendas that are taken to follow from that even though they don’t necessarily. In general, being part of an agenda is important context to view a statement in.
In your example, I’d agree with Tomasik we ought to care about insects to some degree. I think his advocated agenda of avoiding expanding natural habitats (or composting, although I haven’t run into that one), does not follow and is a bad idea morally and practically.
The same thing here. I think the question of whether we should care about fetuses and future people is a valid one, but an agenda trying to disempower women is very much not the right conclusion, and it’s not just neutral under worldviews that seem sensible to me, but rather actively harmful.
That’s a fair consideration, but I don’t think it really affects whether or not we should open-mindedly consider points raised by others who could be said to have an “agenda” we disagree with.
Following the example, let’s say someone replied to Brian’s comment, “Some useful context is that Brian wrote this post advocating for opposing rainforest preservation”. That’s true, and Brian could indeed be (uncharitably) said to “have an agenda trying to disempower environmentalism”.
If someone else read that reply, they could be forgiven for concluding “whew, glad someone pointed out that grifter’s nefarious true purpose!” I think that conclusion would undermine anything valuable Brian actually has to say.
I didn’t downvote you, by the way :)