I am, in general, in favour of inviting critical-of-EA speakers, even those whose critiques I think are unfair or ill-founded (and I agree that “of course we’re favour of critiques as long as they’re true” is not a viable policy). I think if you gave me a list of prominent EA critics I’d be in favour of most of them being invited as speakers.
But Phil Torres has repeatedly crossed lines that I think should not be crossed. It is not okay to accuse EAs of being white supremacists without credible evidence, or to repeatedly and knowingly misrepresent your opponents in order to gain rhetorical advantage. I can’t speak directly to his personal behaviour towards members of this community, but it’s my impression that there are some quite problematic patterns there, too.
The world contains bad actors. We should be careful about labelling those who disagree with us as such, mindful of how hard it is to account for our biases when doing so. But when we do have strong evidence that someone is such, ignoring it isn’t virtuous, it’s irresponsible.
(And yes, I appreciate that very similar arguments to mine could be – and are – made in contexts where I would find their use abhorrent. I think this is just an unfortunate feature of the way the world is.)
Regarding particular arguments Phil has made, I think the bar for “writing someone off” as no-longer worthy of being platformed should be extremely high.
Sounds right to me. Also sounds right that, in the modern world, repeatedly accusing a movement of being tainted with white supremacy using extremely flimsy evidence, in a manner that clearly seems to be about wielding a useful rhetorical weapon rather than anything connected to truth-seeking, is above that bar.
Reflecting on the above, I think I sound more confident about my take here than I actually am. I do lean in the direction I describe here, but I can see why some reasonable people would disagree with me that what we’ve seen from Torres is sufficient to push him past the “actively engaging with critical arguments is good” and into “this is a bad actor we should just avoid associating with”.
But I do think that in cases like this, where there’s a credible (if not ironclad) case that someone is a bad actor, it’s especially important that you provide opportunities for pushback in the form of counter-critical reading, debate partners, et cetera.
I am, in general, in favour of inviting critical-of-EA speakers, even those whose critiques I think are unfair or ill-founded (and I agree that “of course we’re favour of critiques as long as they’re true” is not a viable policy). I think if you gave me a list of prominent EA critics I’d be in favour of most of them being invited as speakers.
But Phil Torres has repeatedly crossed lines that I think should not be crossed. It is not okay to accuse EAs of being white supremacists without credible evidence, or to repeatedly and knowingly misrepresent your opponents in order to gain rhetorical advantage. I can’t speak directly to his personal behaviour towards members of this community, but it’s my impression that there are some quite problematic patterns there, too.
The world contains bad actors. We should be careful about labelling those who disagree with us as such, mindful of how hard it is to account for our biases when doing so. But when we do have strong evidence that someone is such, ignoring it isn’t virtuous, it’s irresponsible.
(And yes, I appreciate that very similar arguments to mine could be – and are – made in contexts where I would find their use abhorrent. I think this is just an unfortunate feature of the way the world is.)
Sounds right to me. Also sounds right that, in the modern world, repeatedly accusing a movement of being tainted with white supremacy using extremely flimsy evidence, in a manner that clearly seems to be about wielding a useful rhetorical weapon rather than anything connected to truth-seeking, is above that bar.
Reflecting on the above, I think I sound more confident about my take here than I actually am. I do lean in the direction I describe here, but I can see why some reasonable people would disagree with me that what we’ve seen from Torres is sufficient to push him past the “actively engaging with critical arguments is good” and into “this is a bad actor we should just avoid associating with”.
But I do think that in cases like this, where there’s a credible (if not ironclad) case that someone is a bad actor, it’s especially important that you provide opportunities for pushback in the form of counter-critical reading, debate partners, et cetera.