Maniano

• ManianoJun 18, 2024, 6:31 AM

  10 points

  0 ∶ 1

  in reply to: harfe’s comment on: My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024

  Here is Saul on Vassar attendance: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​MHenxzydsNgRzSMHY/​​my-experience-at-the-controversial-manifest-2024?commentId=vWLJo6GQ5sFbbbxch

  Tl;dr: Vassar bought a ticket to Summer Camp, got uninvited to it, then the decision was reversed to allow him to participate in Manifest, and he ultimately didn’t end up participating. Editing the main post to reflect this.

• ManianoJun 18, 2024, 6:22 AM

  8 points

  3 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Larks’s comment on: My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024

  I was attempting to use a hyperbolic example that is loosely based on reality to illustrate that even the good parts of a controversial idea can be poisoned by the wrong speaker. Please do take a look at the main text if it looks better to you now?

  For what it is worth, I do feel like the dysgenics comment was in extremely bad taste, and was clearly used as a defence of eugenics. Doing a bit of history nerding in this context was a monumentally bad move.

  The person doing the talk most definitely isn’t pro-holocaust or a holocaust denier, and if this is what people feel like I’ve tried to say then I have failed to make my point.

• ManianoJun 18, 2024, 6:03 AM

  59 points

  11 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Habryka [Deactivated]’s comment on: My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024

  As a side note: I would like to flag that a common meme in the HBD crowd seemed to be that Ashkenazim are the best and the most intelligent race, and that Jewish people were overrepresented among them.

• ManianoJun 18, 2024, 5:47 AM

  18 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Saul Munn’s comment on: My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024

  Thank you for this message Saul Munn. It feels honest and I do notice myself feeling relieved seeing that one of the main organisers isn’t angry at me or something. I’ll make every edit and clarification that you suggested. I would like to point out that I had said that I am unsure if Vassar himself attended the events or not, but I have been told that he did buy a ticket. I believe you that he did not attend, but I will leave a mention about the ticket (unless of course I have been misinformed, but I do get it if you can’t divulge in who specifically has or has not bought a ticket). [Edit: Saul on Vassar attendance]

  I do regret using the holocaust example. The example was loosely based on one speaker who appeared to be defending eugenics by saying that the holocaust was actually considered a dysgenic event by top nazi officials. Many other examples I could have used would have narrowed my identity down quite a bit, as many of the sessions had just a handful people in the audience. What I was going for was “even the good parts of a controversial idea are ruined if you have the wrong person talking about it”. I edited this in the text to make it more clear. Please take a look to see if makes more sense now!

  I appreciate your invite to grab a coffee or have a video call, but I’m afraid I’m already finding writing about this extremely stressful. If you have a couple of specific questions you’d like to ask me, feel free to send me a DM, but I can’t promise an answer.

• ManianoJun 18, 2024, 5:23 AM

  43 points

  10 ∶ 14

  in reply to: terraform’s comment on: My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024

  Thanks for your comment! I think most of these issues stem from the fact that I am not a very good writer or a communicator, and because I tried to be funny at the same time. I hope you can cut me some slack, like you said. Rest assured I haven’t written this post as a bad-faith hit piece, but as a collection of grievances that expand upon some of the core claims The Guardian article made. I am quite a conlfict averse person, so doing this in the first place is pretty nerve wrecking and I’m sure I made a bunch of mistakes or framed things in a sub-optimal way.

  I’ll try to reply to some of your points here:

  Title describes the conference as controversial

  My original draft had a different title, but the release of the Guardian article and subsequent Twitter discussion among EAs and rationalists made me change the title. It felt like an appropriate adjective, and I am somewhat surprised that you don’t feel like these things could be called controversy or warrant the use of that word. I don’t feel very strongly on this, though, and am happy to change the title if you feel like it is inappropriate.

  this section plainly asserts that some people are “racist” without really arguing for or substantiating that claim

  I agree that I have not spent much time actually listing out specific instances that I felt were racist, and I am trusting the reader to simply believe me when I say that depending on the level of comfort some participants said some pretty racist things, or have backgrounds in HBD stuff (which I consider to racist by nature, as by default this stuff does not improve the lives of minorities, but does the very opposite). I am afraid that if I list specific takes or topics I will be blowing my anonymity pretty fast.

  If the event organizers wish to substantiate the claim that many people experienced racist discourse, they could make an anonymous survey for the event attendees. I can believe that one probably can go through the collection of events without noticing that a lot of the attendees seem to hold quite unsavory views, but especially for the people who took part in all three events I feel like that would require quite a bit of naivety. I would love to hear from other attendees as well.

  Article not feeling like a hit-piece

  Thank you for objecting to this and providing receipts. I will edit the post to reflect what David Mathers said along the lines of “a core argument of the article about the event featuring HBD and otherwise problematic people remains true”. You are correct that the article does appear biased. I am not sure I would still label the post under “hit-piece”, but regardless of that keeping that word in the text would be a distraction and will be changed.

  Mention of Republicans

  Many of the values many Republicans hold are incompatible with the values of EA. In addition, there was at least one Republican working in politics present at the event, who engaged in transphobic discourse. I would rather not see more of this.

  I’d get this a bit more if you were from Europe originally

  I was born outside of US and have lived outside of it for most of my life. When in the US, I have not interacted much with people who strongly identify as Republicans. I agree that this might make me biased.

  Intended distancing

  I agree that this was kind of vague, and I am finding it difficult to turn this into actionable interventions. In order to do something like that properly I feel like we’d need more people dedicating way more time to think about this.

  The idea here in short is:

  1. A lot of rationalist are keen on discussing controversial ideas beyond the current Overton window.

  2. This attracts people who are mostly drawn to controversy, and who hold controversial views.

  3. Platforming these people affects both how the community will look like in the future, and how the community is perceived by outsiders.

  4. Due to community overlaps, both the community make-up and the perceptions will reflect on EA as well.

  5. EAs should demand rationalists and other overlapping communities to at least not platform (for example, not an exhaustive list) bigots, race scientists, or otherwise highly problematic people who hold views incompatible with EA.

  6. If this is not possible, EAs should add some distance between the communities, avoid advertising adjacent community events, and go to adjacent community events less.

  I do not think that Lighthaven or the people running it have done anything wrong. I think whoever was in charge of inviting special guests for the three events shouldn’t have platformed many of the people, and someone should have vetted the special guest list.

  What links here?

  • Owen Lawson's comment on Why so many “racists” at Man­i­fest? by Austin (Jun 24, 2024, 9:42 PM; 38 points)
  • TracingWoodgrains's comment on My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024 by Maniano (Jun 19, 2024, 2:31 AM; 28 points)

• ManianoJun 17, 2024, 8:40 PM

  4 points

  3 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Habryka [Deactivated]’s comment on: My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024

  Thanks Habryka, I changed the wording a bit to make it clearer that I was not talking about someone literally holding a presentation on the holocaust.

  Even though I used this hyperbolic example to illustrate that it does matter who you choose to present your ideas, it does have some basis on what happened at the conference as one of the presenters spent some time clarifying that the holocaust was actually considered a dysgenic event by top nazi officials (and thus appealing to the crimes of the nazis against Jewish people is not a valid counter-argument against eugenics) during a Q&A. Apart from this, the example is not really based on anyone specific in particular, and is used for illustrative purposes only.

• ManianoJun 17, 2024, 8:01 PM

  46 points

  3 ∶ 0

  in reply to: David Mathers🔸’s comment on: My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024

  Thanks for your comment David! Just to clarify: Yarvin wasn’t there there as an attendee or as an invitee, but both his personal assistant and many people who seemed to have close ties to him were attending the events. Many attendees also took part in the afterparty organized by Yarvin at his house. I could have been clearer about this in my text.

My ex­pe­rience at the con­tro­ver­sial Man­i­fest 2024