The fact that Torres was a co-author certainly does change the way I interpret the original post. For example. Cremer writes of the review process, “By others we were accused of lacking academic rigour and harbouring bad intentions.”
Before I knew about the Torres part, that sounded more troubling—it would maybe reflect badly on EA culture if reviewers were accusing Cremer and Kemp of these things just for writing “Democratising Risk”. I don’t think it’s a good paper, but I don’t think the content of the final paper is evidence of bad intentions.
But to accuse Torres of having bad intentions and lacking academic rigor? Reviewers would have been absolutely right to do so. By the time the paper was circulating, presumably Torres had already begun their campaign of slander against various members of the longtermist and EA communities.
“-insinuating that various longtermists hold white supremacists views”
Give me one example of this. I have always explicitly maintained, along with Mitchell and Chaudhury, the following:
“Whiteness is remarkable in its ability to render itself invisible to those who possess and benefit from it. Many, if not most, of the (often liberal humanitarian) authors of ‘end of the world’ discourses seem unaware of its integral influence on their thinking, and would almost certainly be horrified at the thought of their work entrenching racialized injustices. We are not suggesting that these authors espouse explicit, intentional and/or extreme racist ideals, on which much public discussion by white people of racism tends to focus.7 Nor do we wish to homogenize or present as equivalent all of the viewpoints discussed in this paper, which display a range of expressions of whiteness and levels of awareness thereof.”
I have never once said “X is a white supremacist” or “X is a racist.” Not once. EA Forum moderators: ask people to support their wild accusations or delete these comments. Thanks.
You are defending yourself against something I did not accuse you of.
I claimed that what you do is insinuation. This indeed implies precisely what you have just claimed: that you never directly write “X is a white supremacist” or “X is a racist”.
You constantly retreat to the alleged fact that you have never said these things explicitly, which is why I was careful with my words.
It’s not a “wild accusation”, it’s a reasonable characterization of very many tweets and articles of yours about figures in longtermism and EA. Have a nice day.
To clarify, this assumes that the reviews were done with Torres as an identified author. That seems plausible, but unclear, and I think it should be verified either way.
UPDATE: less certain of the below. Be sure to read this comment by Cremer disputing Torres’s account https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vv7FBtMxBJicM9pae/democratising-risk-a-community-misled?commentId=CwxqjeG8qqwy8gz4c
The fact that Torres was a co-author certainly does change the way I interpret the original post. For example. Cremer writes of the review process, “By others we were accused of lacking academic rigour and harbouring bad intentions.”
Before I knew about the Torres part, that sounded more troubling—it would maybe reflect badly on EA culture if reviewers were accusing Cremer and Kemp of these things just for writing “Democratising Risk”. I don’t think it’s a good paper, but I don’t think the content of the final paper is evidence of bad intentions.
But to accuse Torres of having bad intentions and lacking academic rigor? Reviewers would have been absolutely right to do so. By the time the paper was circulating, presumably Torres had already begun their campaign of slander against various members of the longtermist and EA communities.
For example, by this point Torres would have already been:
-insinuating that various longtermists hold white supremacists views
-baselessly insinuating or accusing them of plagiarism or something close to it
-calling them liars while admitting the truth of what they said (which was part of what led to the Forum ban)
Accusations of harbouring bad intentions would have been appropriate if not required by this point.
“-insinuating that various longtermists hold white supremacists views”
Give me one example of this. I have always explicitly maintained, along with Mitchell and Chaudhury, the following:
“Whiteness is remarkable in its ability to render itself invisible to those who possess and benefit from it. Many, if not most, of the (often liberal humanitarian) authors of ‘end of the world’ discourses seem unaware of its integral influence on their thinking, and would almost certainly be horrified at the thought of their work entrenching racialized injustices. We are not suggesting that these authors espouse explicit, intentional and/or extreme racist ideals, on which much public discussion by white people of racism tends to focus.7 Nor do we wish to homogenize or present as equivalent all of the viewpoints discussed in this paper, which display a range of expressions of whiteness and levels of awareness thereof.”
I have never once said “X is a white supremacist” or “X is a racist.” Not once. EA Forum moderators: ask people to support their wild accusations or delete these comments. Thanks.
You are defending yourself against something I did not accuse you of.
I claimed that what you do is insinuation. This indeed implies precisely what you have just claimed: that you never directly write “X is a white supremacist” or “X is a racist”.
You constantly retreat to the alleged fact that you have never said these things explicitly, which is why I was careful with my words.
It’s not a “wild accusation”, it’s a reasonable characterization of very many tweets and articles of yours about figures in longtermism and EA. Have a nice day.
To clarify, this assumes that the reviews were done with Torres as an identified author. That seems plausible, but unclear, and I think it should be verified either way.