If youâre still skeptical that people are reluctant or afraid to speak positively about Trump or Republicans in general...
I never said I was skeptical that people felt this way. Iâm quite certain people do feel this way, because youâve said you feel it and so have others. I just wanted to hear more details about that feeling of reluctance/âfear, and to express doubt that no Trump supporter would ever be willing to express that support in a public EA discussion.
Itâs certainly possible, even likely, that âsome peopleâ in the community would react negatively to hearing that someone was a Trump supporter, in a way that made future interactions a bit less collaborative or more fraught. But I think thatâs the nature of expressing strong opinions generally, in almost any community. Someone who came out as a communist would likely face similar challenges. Same for someone who was very religious, or a supporter of PETA, or a fan of Antifa. Probably not for a moderate liberal, even an outspoken one, but thatâs because EAs are overwhelmingly moderately liberal.
This phenomenon makes it hard to have totally open discussions on many topics, politics among them. And I agree with you that any public discussion about politics within EA could be skewed* -- but I just donât think it would be skewed to the point that an idea many people held wouldnât show up at all.
People write controversial Forum comments all the time. People have bitter online arguments in various EA spaces. There are plenty of loud and opinionated people in the community who arenât concerned about how others will react to them (heck, anyone who wants to can make an anonymous account on the Forumâwhere are the anonymous Trump supporters?).
*This is one reason Iâd prefer we not have much partisan political discussion here. And if a group of people were to look for âpolitical donation opportunities,â Iâd hope that they would start by looking carefully at the object-level virtues of each important candidate in a given election, without partisanship.
*****
Can it really be that out of thousands of forum users and FB friends/âfollowers, there is not one Trump or Republican supporter who might object to voting for Democrats on object-level grounds,
Iâve seen political posts from EAs I know that drew in Trump supporters who happened to be in their social networks (though Iâm not sure how many of said supporters would consider themselves interested in EA). But I donât spend much time on Facebook in general, and EA Twitter doesnât have especially active political conversation in my experience (most of Rob Wiblinâs recent posts have ~1 comment, and heâs one of the most popular EA Twitter users). So Iâm interested in your experiences (and those of other people who spend more time than I do in the relevant spaces). Are these FB/âTwitter posts getting 5 comments? 10? 50?
When people respond to partisan political posts from friends they know personally, Iâd expect agreeable responses to dominate. When my socialist Facebook friends post about socialism, they get a lot of responses from other socialists and very few from capitalists, even though I expect they have lots of capitalists in their social networks, and I wouldnât expect capitalists who respond to them to be worried about shunning given that capitalism is a normal position in elite spaces. I think people just donât like starting arguments with their friends over touchy subjects.
Of course, this assumes that the dynamic in play is âresponding to a friend.â If these are posts in discussion-oriented spaces and there are lots of responses, and the responses are all one-sided, thatâs stronger evidence that people donât want to speak out in support of Trump. (However, it also seems plausible that EA is so anti-Trump generally that there just arenât people around who disagree and care enough to comment, especially given how much of the community is non-American.)
*****
As for this Forum: On the post weâre now discussing, the opinionated comments are (as I type this) as follows:
Our back-and-forth (with Ianâs contribution)
Your comment which links to other comments where you push back on the post
xccfâs comment pushing back on the post and making what I see as a good-faith attempt to steelman Trump supporters
Ryan Careyâs comment pushing back on the post
Linchâs comment pushing back on the post (and related discussion)
Abraham Roweâs generally supportive comment
My comment pushing back on the post (though my tone was supportive)
Benâs comment pushing back on the post (but supporting Ian for taking the time to discuss things)
MarcSernaâs comment pushing back on the post
MichaelStJules presenting some neutral thoughts/âfeedback
JTM endorsing the concept of the post and pushing for more discussion
Jordan Warnerâs comment pushing back on the post
Almost unanimously, people seem to want EA to stay out of partisan political stuff. No one aside from Ian and maybe JTM actually argued against Trump on the object level. Iâm not surprised that there were no pro-Trump arguments on the object level.
Comments on the ârecommendations for donating to beat Trump postâ are:
Me noting that we wonât frontpage it (and expressing support for the cause)
A discussion between Peter and Ian about the general case for donating vs. volunteering
Other comments by Peter where he mentions heâd consider donating
And⌠thatâs it. Only three unique respondents, hardly a landslide even if they all express a desire for Trump to lose the election.
On which other Forum posts would it make sense for a pro-Trump EA to discuss their support for Trump? The subject is only now coming up with the election season almost over (kbog had his âCandidate Scoring Systemâ posts a while back, but those didnât lead to much or any partisan discussion IIRC). If it took until now for someone to write the post âsupporting Democrats might be a good EA causeâ and 90% of EA leans left, Iâm not surprised that the post âsupporting Republicans might be a good EA causeâ hasnât come up.
In some posts made around the time of the 2016 election, there were a few comments pointing out potential benefits of a President Trump (see HenryMaine and Larks here). There were more anti-Trump comments, but nothing surprising given the underlying demographics of EA. I just donât think thereâs enough overall activity on the Forum for âno recent object-level pro-Trump commentsâ to mean much.
I never said I was skeptical that people felt this way. Iâm quite certain people do feel this way, because youâve said you feel it and so have others. I just wanted to hear more details about that feeling of reluctance/âfear, and to express doubt that no Trump supporter would ever be willing to express that support in a public EA discussion.
Itâs certainly possible, even likely, that âsome peopleâ in the community would react negatively to hearing that someone was a Trump supporter, in a way that made future interactions a bit less collaborative or more fraught. But I think thatâs the nature of expressing strong opinions generally, in almost any community. Someone who came out as a communist would likely face similar challenges. Same for someone who was very religious, or a supporter of PETA, or a fan of Antifa. Probably not for a moderate liberal, even an outspoken one, but thatâs because EAs are overwhelmingly moderately liberal.
This phenomenon makes it hard to have totally open discussions on many topics, politics among them. And I agree with you that any public discussion about politics within EA could be skewed* -- but I just donât think it would be skewed to the point that an idea many people held wouldnât show up at all.
People write controversial Forum comments all the time. People have bitter online arguments in various EA spaces. There are plenty of loud and opinionated people in the community who arenât concerned about how others will react to them (heck, anyone who wants to can make an anonymous account on the Forumâwhere are the anonymous Trump supporters?).
*This is one reason Iâd prefer we not have much partisan political discussion here. And if a group of people were to look for âpolitical donation opportunities,â Iâd hope that they would start by looking carefully at the object-level virtues of each important candidate in a given election, without partisanship.
*****
Iâve seen political posts from EAs I know that drew in Trump supporters who happened to be in their social networks (though Iâm not sure how many of said supporters would consider themselves interested in EA). But I donât spend much time on Facebook in general, and EA Twitter doesnât have especially active political conversation in my experience (most of Rob Wiblinâs recent posts have ~1 comment, and heâs one of the most popular EA Twitter users). So Iâm interested in your experiences (and those of other people who spend more time than I do in the relevant spaces). Are these FB/âTwitter posts getting 5 comments? 10? 50?
When people respond to partisan political posts from friends they know personally, Iâd expect agreeable responses to dominate. When my socialist Facebook friends post about socialism, they get a lot of responses from other socialists and very few from capitalists, even though I expect they have lots of capitalists in their social networks, and I wouldnât expect capitalists who respond to them to be worried about shunning given that capitalism is a normal position in elite spaces. I think people just donât like starting arguments with their friends over touchy subjects.
Of course, this assumes that the dynamic in play is âresponding to a friend.â If these are posts in discussion-oriented spaces and there are lots of responses, and the responses are all one-sided, thatâs stronger evidence that people donât want to speak out in support of Trump. (However, it also seems plausible that EA is so anti-Trump generally that there just arenât people around who disagree and care enough to comment, especially given how much of the community is non-American.)
*****
As for this Forum: On the post weâre now discussing, the opinionated comments are (as I type this) as follows:
Our back-and-forth (with Ianâs contribution)
Your comment which links to other comments where you push back on the post
xccfâs comment pushing back on the post and making what I see as a good-faith attempt to steelman Trump supporters
Ryan Careyâs comment pushing back on the post
Linchâs comment pushing back on the post (and related discussion)
Abraham Roweâs generally supportive comment
My comment pushing back on the post (though my tone was supportive)
Benâs comment pushing back on the post (but supporting Ian for taking the time to discuss things)
MarcSernaâs comment pushing back on the post
MichaelStJules presenting some neutral thoughts/âfeedback
JTM endorsing the concept of the post and pushing for more discussion
Jordan Warnerâs comment pushing back on the post
Almost unanimously, people seem to want EA to stay out of partisan political stuff. No one aside from Ian and maybe JTM actually argued against Trump on the object level. Iâm not surprised that there were no pro-Trump arguments on the object level.
Comments on the ârecommendations for donating to beat Trump postâ are:
Me noting that we wonât frontpage it (and expressing support for the cause)
A discussion between Peter and Ian about the general case for donating vs. volunteering
Other comments by Peter where he mentions heâd consider donating
And⌠thatâs it. Only three unique respondents, hardly a landslide even if they all express a desire for Trump to lose the election.
On which other Forum posts would it make sense for a pro-Trump EA to discuss their support for Trump? The subject is only now coming up with the election season almost over (kbog had his âCandidate Scoring Systemâ posts a while back, but those didnât lead to much or any partisan discussion IIRC). If it took until now for someone to write the post âsupporting Democrats might be a good EA causeâ and 90% of EA leans left, Iâm not surprised that the post âsupporting Republicans might be a good EA causeâ hasnât come up.
In some posts made around the time of the 2016 election, there were a few comments pointing out potential benefits of a President Trump (see HenryMaine and Larks here). There were more anti-Trump comments, but nothing surprising given the underlying demographics of EA. I just donât think thereâs enough overall activity on the Forum for âno recent object-level pro-Trump commentsâ to mean much.