Despite disagreeing with most of it, including but not limited to the things highlighted in this post, I think that Torres’s post is fairly characterised as thought-provoking. I’m glad Joshua included it in the syllabus, also glad he caveated its inclusion, and think this response by Hayden is useful.
I haven’t interacted with Phil much at all, so this is a comment purely on the essay, and not a defense of other claims he’s made or how he’s interacted with you.
edit in 2022, as this comment is still occasionally receiving votes: I stand by the above, but having read several other pieces since, displaying increasing levels of bad faith, I’m increasingly sympathetic to those who would rather not engage with it.
I second most of what Alex says here. Like him, I only know about this particular essay from Torres, so I will limit my comments to that.
Notwithstanding my own objections to its tone and arguments, this essay did provoke important thoughts for me – as well as for other committed longtermists with whom I shared it – and that was why I ultimately ended up including it on the syllabus. The fact that, within 48 hours, someone put in enough effort to write a detailed forum post about the substance of the essay suggests that it can, in fact, provoke the kinds of discussions about important subjects that I was hoping to see.
Indeed, it is exactly because I think the presentation in this essay leaves something to be desired that I would love to see more community discussion on some of these critiques of longtermism, so that their strongest possible versions can be evaluated. I realise I haven’t actually specified which among the essay’s many arguments that I find interesting, so I hope I will find time to do that at some point, whether in this thread or a separate post.
Like him, I only know about this particular essay from Torres, so I will limit my comments to that.
I personally do not think it is appropriate to include an essay in a syllabus or engage with it in a forum post when (1) this essay characterizes the views it argues against using terms like ‘white supremacy’ and in a way that suggests (without explicitly asserting it, to retain plausible deniability) that their proponents—including eminently sensible and reasonable people such as Nick Beckstead and others— are white supremacists, and when (2) its author has shown repeatedly in previous publications, social media posts and other behavior that he is not writing in good faith and that he is unwilling to engage in honest discussion.
(To be clear: I think the syllabus is otherwise great, and kudos for creating it!)
EDIT: See Seán’s comment for further elaboration on points (1) and (2) above.
Genuine question: if someone has views that are widely considered repugnant (in this case that longtermists are white supremacists) but otherwise raises points that some people find interesting and thought-provoking, should we:
A) Strongly condemn the repugnant ideas whilst genuinely engaging with the other ideas
B) Ignore the person completely / cancel them
If the person is clearly trolling or not writing in good faith then I’d imagine B) is the best response, but if Torres is in fact trolling then I find it surprising that some people find some of his ideas interesting / thought-provoking.
(Just to reiterate this is a genuine question I’m not stating a view one way or the other and I also haven’t read Torres’ post)
In this case, I would say it’s not the mere fact that they hold views widely considered repugnant, but the conjunction of that fact with decisive evidence of intellectual dishonesty (that some people found his writings thought provoking isn’t necessarily in tension with the existence of this evidence). Even then you probably could conceive of scenarios where the points raised are so insightful that one should still engage with the author, but I think it’s pretty clear this isn’t one of those cases.
The last time I tried to isolate the variable of intellectual dishonesty using a non-culture war example on this forum (in this case using fairly non-controversial (to EAs) examples of intellectual dishonesty, and with academic figures that I at least don’t think are unusually insightful by EA lights), commentators appeared to be against the within-EA cancellation of them, and instead opted for a position more like:
I would be somewhat unhappy to see them given just a talk with Q&A, with no natural place to provide pushback and followup discussion, but if someone were to organize an event with Baumeister debating some EA with opinions on scientific methodology, I would love to attend that.
This appears broadly analogous to how jtm presented Torres’ book in his syllabus. Now of course a) there are nontrivial framing effects so perhaps people might like to revise their conclusions in my comment and b) you might have alternative reasons to not cite Torres in certain situations (eg very high standard for quality of argument, deciding that personal attacks on fellow movement members is verbotten), but at least the triplet-conjunction presented in your comment ( bad opinions + intellectual dishonesty + lack of extraordinary insight) did not, at the time, seem to be sufficient criteria in the relatively depoliticized examples I cited.
Despite disagreeing with most of it, including but not limited to the things highlighted in this post, I think that Torres’s post is fairly characterised as thought-provoking. I’m glad Joshua included it in the syllabus, also glad he caveated its inclusion, and think this response by Hayden is useful.
I haven’t interacted with Phil much at all, so this is a comment purely on the essay, and not a defense of other claims he’s made or how he’s interacted with you.
edit in 2022, as this comment is still occasionally receiving votes:
I stand by the above, but having read several other pieces since, displaying increasing levels of bad faith, I’m increasingly sympathetic to those who would rather not engage with it.
I second most of what Alex says here. Like him, I only know about this particular essay from Torres, so I will limit my comments to that.
Notwithstanding my own objections to its tone and arguments, this essay did provoke important thoughts for me – as well as for other committed longtermists with whom I shared it – and that was why I ultimately ended up including it on the syllabus. The fact that, within 48 hours, someone put in enough effort to write a detailed forum post about the substance of the essay suggests that it can, in fact, provoke the kinds of discussions about important subjects that I was hoping to see.
Indeed, it is exactly because I think the presentation in this essay leaves something to be desired that I would love to see more community discussion on some of these critiques of longtermism, so that their strongest possible versions can be evaluated. I realise I haven’t actually specified which among the essay’s many arguments that I find interesting, so I hope I will find time to do that at some point, whether in this thread or a separate post.
I personally do not think it is appropriate to include an essay in a syllabus or engage with it in a forum post when (1) this essay characterizes the views it argues against using terms like ‘white supremacy’ and in a way that suggests (without explicitly asserting it, to retain plausible deniability) that their proponents—including eminently sensible and reasonable people such as Nick Beckstead and others— are white supremacists, and when (2) its author has shown repeatedly in previous publications, social media posts and other behavior that he is not writing in good faith and that he is unwilling to engage in honest discussion.
(To be clear: I think the syllabus is otherwise great, and kudos for creating it!)
EDIT: See Seán’s comment for further elaboration on points (1) and (2) above.
Genuine question: if someone has views that are widely considered repugnant (in this case that longtermists are white supremacists) but otherwise raises points that some people find interesting and thought-provoking, should we:
A) Strongly condemn the repugnant ideas whilst genuinely engaging with the other ideas
B) Ignore the person completely / cancel them
If the person is clearly trolling or not writing in good faith then I’d imagine B) is the best response, but if Torres is in fact trolling then I find it surprising that some people find some of his ideas interesting / thought-provoking.
(Just to reiterate this is a genuine question I’m not stating a view one way or the other and I also haven’t read Torres’ post)
In this case, I would say it’s not the mere fact that they hold views widely considered repugnant, but the conjunction of that fact with decisive evidence of intellectual dishonesty (that some people found his writings thought provoking isn’t necessarily in tension with the existence of this evidence). Even then you probably could conceive of scenarios where the points raised are so insightful that one should still engage with the author, but I think it’s pretty clear this isn’t one of those cases.
The last time I tried to isolate the variable of intellectual dishonesty using a non-culture war example on this forum (in this case using fairly non-controversial (to EAs) examples of intellectual dishonesty, and with academic figures that I at least don’t think are unusually insightful by EA lights), commentators appeared to be against the within-EA cancellation of them, and instead opted for a position more like:
This appears broadly analogous to how jtm presented Torres’ book in his syllabus. Now of course a) there are nontrivial framing effects so perhaps people might like to revise their conclusions in my comment and b) you might have alternative reasons to not cite Torres in certain situations (eg very high standard for quality of argument, deciding that personal attacks on fellow movement members is verbotten), but at least the triplet-conjunction presented in your comment (
bad opinions + intellectual dishonesty + lack of extraordinary insight) did not, at the time, seem to be sufficient criteria in the relatively depoliticized examples I cited.