Co-Director EA Germany
Entrepreneur (currently textiles, previously software) for 25+ years and interested in EA since 2015, joining the local group and donating. I joined the EA Munich organiser team and took the GWWC pledge in 2020, developed the software for the new donation management system Effektiv Spenden is using in Germany and Switzerland in 2021 and have been co-director of EA Germany since November 2022.
I run the donation drive Knitters Against Malaria, which has raised over $100,000 for the Against Malaria Foundation since 2018.
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 Todd’s quote “Once your message is out there, it tends to stick around for years, so if you get the message wrong, you’ve harmed years of future efforts.” 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 shouldn’t 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.