Just to clarify, are you arguing that the Hanson thread shouldn’t have been posted, because it would qualify as casual discussion of bigotry? You reference the thread at the beginning, but I’m unclear whether it’s an example of what you discuss later.
No, I don’t think the discussion on the Hanson thread in this forum involved casual bigotry. In general, I think discussion here on the EA forum tends to be more acceptable than in other EA social media spaces. (Maybe this is because nested threads are supported here, or maybe it’s because people consider this space more prestigious and so act more respectfully.) But much of the discussion of the Hanson incident on Twitter would certainly qualify as casual bigotry, and I’ve witnessed a few threads on EA Facebook groups that also involved clear casual bigotry.
I should stress here that I feel very conflicted about the status of this EA forum as it relates to new EAs. On the one hand, we clearly use this as a place for new EAs to discuss things. But I almost want to say that this is somehow a more formal space than the EA Facebook group, so I’d be far more comfortable with discussing divisive issues here than on Facebook. I said in my original post that we can have a less safe pull communication space where open debate and serious steel-manning of controversial ideas occur—I think maybe the EA forum would be a good place for that to happen. But I’m not sure of this. And this whole line of thinking is something I’m still feeling conflicted about in the first place, so I don’t know how seriously others should take what I’m saying here at all.
Just to clarify, are you arguing that the Hanson thread shouldn’t have been posted, because it would qualify as casual discussion of bigotry? You reference the thread at the beginning, but I’m unclear whether it’s an example of what you discuss later.
No, I don’t think the discussion on the Hanson thread in this forum involved casual bigotry. In general, I think discussion here on the EA forum tends to be more acceptable than in other EA social media spaces. (Maybe this is because nested threads are supported here, or maybe it’s because people consider this space more prestigious and so act more respectfully.) But much of the discussion of the Hanson incident on Twitter would certainly qualify as casual bigotry, and I’ve witnessed a few threads on EA Facebook groups that also involved clear casual bigotry.
I should stress here that I feel very conflicted about the status of this EA forum as it relates to new EAs. On the one hand, we clearly use this as a place for new EAs to discuss things. But I almost want to say that this is somehow a more formal space than the EA Facebook group, so I’d be far more comfortable with discussing divisive issues here than on Facebook. I said in my original post that we can have a less safe pull communication space where open debate and serious steel-manning of controversial ideas occur—I think maybe the EA forum would be a good place for that to happen. But I’m not sure of this. And this whole line of thinking is something I’m still feeling conflicted about in the first place, so I don’t know how seriously others should take what I’m saying here at all.