‘By the law of prevalence, I therefore expect the number of EAs who don’t fully condemn SBF’s actions to be far greater than the number who publicly express opinions other than full condemnation.’
It seems like you can always use this to claim “sure, everyone says they don’t think X, but they could be lying for reputational purposes” whenever X is taboo, but some (most!) taboo things are genuinely unpopular. That seems dangerously unfalsifiable. Of course, the actual conclusion of “more people believe taboo things than will admit to it” is true in almost all cases. But if almost no one will admit to having an opinion, the real prevalence can still be low even if higher than the visible prevalence.
I agree that on things that are taboo to support (like this) we should expect support to be greater than publicly acknowledged support. However, a near-universal lack of public support is still evidence of a genuine lack of support. We could debate how much evidence it is. Talking to EAs 1-on-1 I also have barely found any that say they support the kind of actions that SBF was accused of, but many that condemn those actions. Again, not perfect evidence, but it provides a bit of additional evidence.
‘By the law of prevalence, I therefore expect the number of EAs who don’t fully condemn SBF’s actions to be far greater than the number who publicly express opinions other than full condemnation.’
It seems like you can always use this to claim “sure, everyone says they don’t think X, but they could be lying for reputational purposes” whenever X is taboo, but some (most!) taboo things are genuinely unpopular. That seems dangerously unfalsifiable. Of course, the actual conclusion of “more people believe taboo things than will admit to it” is true in almost all cases. But if almost no one will admit to having an opinion, the real prevalence can still be low even if higher than the visible prevalence.
I agree that on things that are taboo to support (like this) we should expect support to be greater than publicly acknowledged support. However, a near-universal lack of public support is still evidence of a genuine lack of support. We could debate how much evidence it is. Talking to EAs 1-on-1 I also have barely found any that say they support the kind of actions that SBF was accused of, but many that condemn those actions. Again, not perfect evidence, but it provides a bit of additional evidence.