Is your fear of saying positive things about Trump based on how you would expect people in the EA community to react? Is it more about people elsewhere on the internet who might happen to see your views or track them down because of an unrelated grudge they hold against you?
I can easily imagine someone in the EA community taking a pro-Trump position for EA-related reasons (e.g. a belief that abortion is a hugely neglected cause area, or that gains from Trumpās economic/āwar-avoiding policies overwhelm losses from his other policies). What do you predict would happen to someone like that? Would you expect them to be fired if they held a position at an EA org? Barred from attending EA Global? Shunned by people in their local group?
Iāll also note that the positions in a discussion like the one Ian proposes arenāt really āpro-Trumpā and āanti-Trumpā: they are āTrump is so bad that preventing his election is a competitive EA cause areaā and āno, this doesnāt really measure up to other cause areas, or is otherwise a bad idea.ā Someone could easily argue for the latter point even if they would never vote for Trump.
(That said, if this discussion really would exclude everyone who could possibly be taken as a Trump supporter, that seems very unhealthy to me. I just donāt think thatās what would happen.)
Itās based on how I expect some people in the EA community to react (they would be less likely to consider me in a positive light, take my ideas seriously, be willing to lend me their cooperation when I need it, hire me, etc.), and also on the fact that I live in a very left-leaning area (as most EAs probably do) where being (or suspected of being) a Trump supporter can easily make someone socially ostracized, which would impact not just me but my family. And yes, I also expect and fear that my views will be tracked down, perhaps deliberately misinterpreted, and used against me, by someone who might hold a grudge against me in the future, or just think thatās a good way to get what they want, e.g., in a policy dispute.
If youāre still skeptical that people are reluctant or afraid to speak positively about Trump or Republicans in general, have you noticed that nobody has pushed back against the recent Democrat-promoting posts here on object-level grounds? Iāve seen the same on FB posts of prominent EA people promoting voting for Democrats, where every comment is some flavor of support. Can it really be that out of thousands of forum users and FB friends/āfollowers, there is not one Trump or Republican supporter who might object to voting for Democrats on object-level grounds, or perhaps just someone who thinks that the authors are overstating their case for object-level reasons?
If youāre 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. Iām quite certain people do feel this way, because youāve said you feel it and so have others. I just wanted to hear more details about that feeling of reluctance/āfear, and to express doubt that no Trump supporter would ever be willing to express that support in a public EA discussion.
Itās certainly possible, even likely, that āsome peopleā 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 thatās 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 thatās 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 donāt think it would be skewed to the point that an idea many people held wouldnāt 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 arenāt concerned about how others will react to them (heck, anyone who wants to can make an anonymous account on the Forumāwhere are the anonymous Trump supporters?).
*This is one reason Iād prefer we not have much partisan political discussion here. And if a group of people were to look for āpolitical donation opportunities,ā Iād 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/āfollowers, there is not one Trump or Republican supporter who might object to voting for Democrats on object-level grounds,
Iāve seen political posts from EAs I know that drew in Trump supporters who happened to be in their social networks (though Iām not sure how many of said supporters would consider themselves interested in EA). But I donāt spend much time on Facebook in general, and EA Twitter doesnāt have especially active political conversation in my experience (most of Rob Wiblinās recent posts have ~1 comment, and heās one of the most popular EA Twitter users). So Iām interested in your experiences (and those of other people who spend more time than I do in the relevant spaces). Are these FB/āTwitter posts getting 5 comments? 10? 50?
When people respond to partisan political posts from friends they know personally, Iād 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 wouldnāt 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 donāt like starting arguments with their friends over touchy subjects.
Of course, this assumes that the dynamic in play is āresponding to a friend.ā If these are posts in discussion-oriented spaces and there are lots of responses, and the responses are all one-sided, thatās stronger evidence that people donāt want to speak out in support of Trump. (However, it also seems plausible that EA is so anti-Trump generally that there just arenāt people around who disagree and care enough to comment, especially given how much of the community is non-American.)
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As for this Forum: On the post weāre now discussing, the opinionated comments are (as I type this) as follows:
Our back-and-forth (with Ianās contribution)
Your comment which links to other comments where you push back on the post
xccfās comment pushing back on the post and making what I see as a good-faith attempt to steelman Trump supporters
Ryan Careyās comment pushing back on the post
Linchās comment pushing back on the post (and related discussion)
Abraham Roweās generally supportive comment
My comment pushing back on the post (though my tone was supportive)
Benās comment pushing back on the post (but supporting Ian for taking the time to discuss things)
MarcSernaās comment pushing back on the post
MichaelStJules presenting some neutral thoughts/āfeedback
JTM endorsing the concept of the post and pushing for more discussion
Jordan Warnerās 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. Iām not surprised that there were no pro-Trump arguments on the object level.
Comments on the ārecommendations for donating to beat Trump postā are:
Me noting that we wonāt 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 heād consider donating
Andā¦ thatās 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 āCandidate Scoring Systemā posts a while back, but those didnāt lead to much or any partisan discussion IIRC). If it took until now for someone to write the post āsupporting Democrats might be a good EA causeā and 90% of EA leans left, Iām not surprised that the post āsupporting Republicans might be a good EA causeā hasnāt 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 donāt think thereās enough overall activity on the Forum for āno recent object-level pro-Trump commentsā to mean much.
What do you predict would happen to someone like that? Would you expect them to be fired if they held a position at an EA org? Barred from attending EA Global? Shunned by people in their local group?
Peter Thiel spoke at the EA Summit in 2014 I think, what happened to him? I heard at least one EA say we should kick him out.
Was the āat least one EAā someone in a position of influence?
My understanding is that Thiel stopped being especially interested in EA around the time he got into politics, but he might still be making AI-related donations here and there. Iād be surprised if he had wanted to speak at any recent EA Global conference, as most of his current work seems either opposed to or orthogonal to common EA positions. But I donāt have any special knowledge here. (Certainly he was never Glebbed.)
Was the āat least one EAā someone in a position of influence?
Not really.
most of his current work seems either opposed to or orthogonal to common EA positions.
I think you have to be careful here, because if someoneās work is āopposedā to a common EA position, itās possible that they disagree on facts related to that position but they are still motivated by doing the most good. It plays into the feedback loop I was talking about in the other comment. If you disagree with someone a lot, and you donāt think you will be able to change their mind, you might not want to invest the time in exploring that disagreement.
Sureāthatās a good thing to clarify. When I say āopposed to,ā I mean that it seems like the things he presently cares about donāt seem connected to a cause-neutral welfare-maximizing perspective (though I canāt say I know what his motivations are, so perhaps that is what heās aiming for).
Most notably, his PAC explicitly supports an āAmerica First immigration policy,ā which seems difficult to square with his espoused libertarianism and his complaints about technological slowdown in addition to being directly opposed to work from Open Phil and others. I donāt understand exactly what his aims are at this point, but it feels like heās far away enough from the EA baseline that I wouldnāt want to assume a motivation of ādo the most good in a cause-neutral wayā anymore.
I think itās plausible many EAs would not want to interact with a Trump supporter regularly, and while I doubt it would cost them their job or get them banned from EA global, I do wonder if it would count against them in trying to get a job at EA orgs. I think this is more likely in the effective animal advocacy space, which is influenced by the broader animal advocacy/āactivism space, and so seems further left than EA on average.
Is your fear of saying positive things about Trump based on how you would expect people in the EA community to react? Is it more about people elsewhere on the internet who might happen to see your views or track them down because of an unrelated grudge they hold against you?
I can easily imagine someone in the EA community taking a pro-Trump position for EA-related reasons (e.g. a belief that abortion is a hugely neglected cause area, or that gains from Trumpās economic/āwar-avoiding policies overwhelm losses from his other policies). What do you predict would happen to someone like that? Would you expect them to be fired if they held a position at an EA org? Barred from attending EA Global? Shunned by people in their local group?
Iāll also note that the positions in a discussion like the one Ian proposes arenāt really āpro-Trumpā and āanti-Trumpā: they are āTrump is so bad that preventing his election is a competitive EA cause areaā and āno, this doesnāt really measure up to other cause areas, or is otherwise a bad idea.ā Someone could easily argue for the latter point even if they would never vote for Trump.
(That said, if this discussion really would exclude everyone who could possibly be taken as a Trump supporter, that seems very unhealthy to me. I just donāt think thatās what would happen.)
Itās based on how I expect some people in the EA community to react (they would be less likely to consider me in a positive light, take my ideas seriously, be willing to lend me their cooperation when I need it, hire me, etc.), and also on the fact that I live in a very left-leaning area (as most EAs probably do) where being (or suspected of being) a Trump supporter can easily make someone socially ostracized, which would impact not just me but my family. And yes, I also expect and fear that my views will be tracked down, perhaps deliberately misinterpreted, and used against me, by someone who might hold a grudge against me in the future, or just think thatās a good way to get what they want, e.g., in a policy dispute.
If youāre still skeptical that people are reluctant or afraid to speak positively about Trump or Republicans in general, have you noticed that nobody has pushed back against the recent Democrat-promoting posts here on object-level grounds? Iāve seen the same on FB posts of prominent EA people promoting voting for Democrats, where every comment is some flavor of support. Can it really be that out of thousands of forum users and FB friends/āfollowers, there is not one Trump or Republican supporter who might object to voting for Democrats on object-level grounds, or perhaps just someone who thinks that the authors are overstating their case for object-level reasons?
I never said I was skeptical that people felt this way. Iām quite certain people do feel this way, because youāve said you feel it and so have others. I just wanted to hear more details about that feeling of reluctance/āfear, and to express doubt that no Trump supporter would ever be willing to express that support in a public EA discussion.
Itās certainly possible, even likely, that āsome peopleā 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 thatās 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 thatās 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 donāt think it would be skewed to the point that an idea many people held wouldnāt 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 arenāt concerned about how others will react to them (heck, anyone who wants to can make an anonymous account on the Forumāwhere are the anonymous Trump supporters?).
*This is one reason Iād prefer we not have much partisan political discussion here. And if a group of people were to look for āpolitical donation opportunities,ā Iād hope that they would start by looking carefully at the object-level virtues of each important candidate in a given election, without partisanship.
*****
Iāve seen political posts from EAs I know that drew in Trump supporters who happened to be in their social networks (though Iām not sure how many of said supporters would consider themselves interested in EA). But I donāt spend much time on Facebook in general, and EA Twitter doesnāt have especially active political conversation in my experience (most of Rob Wiblinās recent posts have ~1 comment, and heās one of the most popular EA Twitter users). So Iām interested in your experiences (and those of other people who spend more time than I do in the relevant spaces). Are these FB/āTwitter posts getting 5 comments? 10? 50?
When people respond to partisan political posts from friends they know personally, Iād 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 wouldnāt 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 donāt like starting arguments with their friends over touchy subjects.
Of course, this assumes that the dynamic in play is āresponding to a friend.ā If these are posts in discussion-oriented spaces and there are lots of responses, and the responses are all one-sided, thatās stronger evidence that people donāt want to speak out in support of Trump. (However, it also seems plausible that EA is so anti-Trump generally that there just arenāt 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 weāre now discussing, the opinionated comments are (as I type this) as follows:
Our back-and-forth (with Ianās contribution)
Your comment which links to other comments where you push back on the post
xccfās comment pushing back on the post and making what I see as a good-faith attempt to steelman Trump supporters
Ryan Careyās comment pushing back on the post
Linchās comment pushing back on the post (and related discussion)
Abraham Roweās generally supportive comment
My comment pushing back on the post (though my tone was supportive)
Benās comment pushing back on the post (but supporting Ian for taking the time to discuss things)
MarcSernaās comment pushing back on the post
MichaelStJules presenting some neutral thoughts/āfeedback
JTM endorsing the concept of the post and pushing for more discussion
Jordan Warnerās 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. Iām not surprised that there were no pro-Trump arguments on the object level.
Comments on the ārecommendations for donating to beat Trump postā are:
Me noting that we wonāt 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 heād consider donating
Andā¦ thatās 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 āCandidate Scoring Systemā posts a while back, but those didnāt lead to much or any partisan discussion IIRC). If it took until now for someone to write the post āsupporting Democrats might be a good EA causeā and 90% of EA leans left, Iām not surprised that the post āsupporting Republicans might be a good EA causeā hasnāt 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 donāt think thereās enough overall activity on the Forum for āno recent object-level pro-Trump commentsā to mean much.
Peter Thiel spoke at the EA Summit in 2014 I think, what happened to him? I heard at least one EA say we should kick him out.
Was the āat least one EAā someone in a position of influence?
My understanding is that Thiel stopped being especially interested in EA around the time he got into politics, but he might still be making AI-related donations here and there. Iād be surprised if he had wanted to speak at any recent EA Global conference, as most of his current work seems either opposed to or orthogonal to common EA positions. But I donāt have any special knowledge here. (Certainly he was never Glebbed.)
Not really.
I think you have to be careful here, because if someoneās work is āopposedā to a common EA position, itās possible that they disagree on facts related to that position but they are still motivated by doing the most good. It plays into the feedback loop I was talking about in the other comment. If you disagree with someone a lot, and you donāt think you will be able to change their mind, you might not want to invest the time in exploring that disagreement.
Sureāthatās a good thing to clarify. When I say āopposed to,ā I mean that it seems like the things he presently cares about donāt seem connected to a cause-neutral welfare-maximizing perspective (though I canāt say I know what his motivations are, so perhaps that is what heās aiming for).
Most notably, his PAC explicitly supports an āAmerica First immigration policy,ā which seems difficult to square with his espoused libertarianism and his complaints about technological slowdown in addition to being directly opposed to work from Open Phil and others. I donāt understand exactly what his aims are at this point, but it feels like heās far away enough from the EA baseline that I wouldnāt want to assume a motivation of ādo the most good in a cause-neutral wayā anymore.
I think itās plausible many EAs would not want to interact with a Trump supporter regularly, and while I doubt it would cost them their job or get them banned from EA global, I do wonder if it would count against them in trying to get a job at EA orgs. I think this is more likely in the effective animal advocacy space, which is influenced by the broader animal advocacy/āactivism space, and so seems further left than EA on average.