As one of the organisers of the EA Munich group this was the first thing I thought of when we heard about the press coverage of Robin Hanson: What can we learn from the EA association of the controversies of Peter Singer. I was thinking of your comment and of Ben Toddâs quote âOnce your message is out there, it tends to stick around for years, so if you get the message wrong, youâve harmed years of future efforts.â I think there is much harm that can be done in canceling but it should be weighed against the potential harm of hurting the movement in a country where values and sentiments can be different than in the english speaking world.
For me the Robin Hanson talk would have been the first event as a co-organiser and seeing a potential cooperation partner unearthing the negative press about Robin Hanson and telling us that they would not be able to work with us if we hosted him, was an indication that we shouldnât rush to hold this talk. Oliver Habryka summarised this pretty well:
Having participated in a debrief meeting for EA Munich, my assessment is indeed that one of the primary reasons the event was cancelled was due to fear of disruptors showing up at the event, similar to how they have done for some events of Peter Singer. Indeed almost all concerns that were brought up during that meeting were concerns of external parties threatening EA Munich, or EA at large, in response to inviting Hanson. There were some minor concerns about Hansonâs views qua his views alone, but basically all organizers who spoke at the debrief I was part of said that they were interested in hearing Robinâs ideas and would have enjoyed participating in an event with him, and were primarily worried about how others would perceive it and react to inviting him.
I just looked up what I wrote internally after the decision and still think this is a good summary:
In an ideal world we have known about the issues beforehand, would have talked them through internally and if we had invited him we would have known how to address them in a way that is not harmful to the EA community. However given the short time we saw more risks in alienating people than getting them interested in EA through the talk.
The monthly talks we host are public and posted on Meetup and Facebook so our audience consists of people who are new to the community. We as EA local groups are the first impression many people get of the community and are the faces of the community in our region so I would argue we should be well prepared and versed in potential controversies before hosting talks especially with prominent people and on a video platform where all statements can be recorded and shared. As a group that had just one female speaker in the last 15 talks I think this is especially the case if press coverage may seem that the speaker has views that may make women feel less welcome.
At the time it seemed riskier to try to assess and reduce the risks about the potential negative consequences around the talk then to cancel it. However my error was in not assessing risks around signaling in terms of Cancel Culture.
As one of the organisers of the EA Munich group this was the first thing I thought of when we heard about the press coverage of Robin Hanson: What can we learn from the EA association of the controversies of Peter Singer. I was thinking of your comment and of Ben Toddâs quote âOnce your message is out there, it tends to stick around for years, so if you get the message wrong, youâve harmed years of future efforts.â I think there is much harm that can be done in canceling but it should be weighed against the potential harm of hurting the movement in a country where values and sentiments can be different than in the english speaking world.
For me the Robin Hanson talk would have been the first event as a co-organiser and seeing a potential cooperation partner unearthing the negative press about Robin Hanson and telling us that they would not be able to work with us if we hosted him, was an indication that we shouldnât rush to hold this talk. Oliver Habryka summarised this pretty well:
I just looked up what I wrote internally after the decision and still think this is a good summary:
The monthly talks we host are public and posted on Meetup and Facebook so our audience consists of people who are new to the community. We as EA local groups are the first impression many people get of the community and are the faces of the community in our region so I would argue we should be well prepared and versed in potential controversies before hosting talks especially with prominent people and on a video platform where all statements can be recorded and shared. As a group that had just one female speaker in the last 15 talks I think this is especially the case if press coverage may seem that the speaker has views that may make women feel less welcome.
At the time it seemed riskier to try to assess and reduce the risks about the potential negative consequences around the talk then to cancel it. However my error was in not assessing risks around signaling in terms of Cancel Culture.