Hi, last organizer here, wanted to give my take.
Overall, I’m sympathetic to the point this post is making.
This is tricky because I think I could defend the choice to have any of the individual controversial speakers. Some of them, e.g. Simone and Malcolm Collins, simply do not hold racist views. Sure, they can be edgy and inflammatory — they act this way on the internet strategically as far as I can tell, and it’s not my style. But they’re not scientific racists. Embryo selection has nothing to do with race or reproductive coercion and oppression. Plus they are particularly generous, friendly, and engaging in person, which means they are particularly value-adding as attendees. Others of them, e.g. Brian Chau, I don’t like the style or opinions of about basically anything (though I admit I’ve hardly engaged with his stuff). I’ve seen him write about race and gender in a way I perceive to be unnecessarily inflammatory, and like, mean? And I think he’s wrong and doing a lot of harm with the AI stuff. But he came to do a debate with Holly Elmore about acceleration vs. pause. It was a very popular session, and I heard from an AI safety friend I respect a lot that he learned a lot about Brian’s views, which was useful!!
That said, in the end, the concentration of the edgy people was weirdly high, in a way that seems to have skewed your experience significantly. I’m sorry. As Saul and Austin have indicated in their comments, this was a thing we were concerned about, and though we took some action to correct it, perhaps we didn’t totally succeed.
I do not see this as a matter of banning certain ideas or people from Manifest. Openness and free speech are really important to me, and as Nathan said, it’s good to provide a space for this that isn’t the “dissident right.” Forecasting is a good candidate. Last year, Hanania came and remarked afterwards that his “mind had been opened” after talking to some trans women at the event. People meeting with others they strongly disagree with in person can be enormously valuable! There are lots of people on the guest list who I disagree with strongly about a variety of things — for example, I think Eliezer’s takes on baby and animal suffering are wrong in a super morally important way, but I’m still happy he came.
Instead, I think this is an issue of emphasis and balance. As Ozzie noted in his comment, there’s an unintentional spiraling effect: being open to a couple of edgy people early on means future invited edgy people feel like it’s more an event for them and are more likely to want to come, and that attracts more edgy attendees, etc. (and probably puts off the opposite kinds of people but of course that’s less visible to us). So without trying to elevate their more extreme ideas or their styles, we end up doing so via some early light momentum and continued chillness. At times I was thought “maybe we shouldn’t have so many of these people on our website, that might send the wrong message about what we’re about” — not everyone we gave a free ticket to was listed, and this could have prevented this from spiraling. But that also seemed potentially dishonest, like we were trying to hide that the controversial people were invited? So, idk.
I personally quite dislike contrarianism for its own sake. I prefer not to hang out with people who use language like “fag” and “retard”, and would not like to cultivate that vibe at events I run. My impression based on the Manifest feedback is that overwhelmingly, people were kind, activities were wholesome, and conversations were spectacular. But a couple responses, and now this post, have made me think there was a bit more edgelordism than would have been ideal. If Manifest happens again next year, I’d like to nudge it away from this.
You can see Saul’s and Austin’s comments about this as well, which are more detailed than mine, and the details of which I almost entirely agree with.
(Tbh I might not respond to replies here. For one, I find this kind of thing pretty stressful and aversive and have already spent too much time and energy on it. For two, I’m really pregnant and could have a baby to deal with any day now.)
I appreciate the main point you’re making: that you’re someone we would value having at Manifest, and including people like Hanania causes you to not come.
However, I think there’s a miscommunication going on: as far as I can tell, not Austin, nor any of us organizers, nor any of the people defending Manifest’s choice of speakers nor those defending the speakers themselves, thinks that Manifest is “fun” because it’s “edgy”. I’ve noticed you tie these things together in a few comments in a way that feels to me like a straw man, like you think that we think it’s “fun” to be “edgy”, when we in fact do not.
The “fun” thing, which Austin is rightly proud of, refers to the festival part: Manifest hosts mostly serious talks during the day, but there is also e.g. a dance class, wrestling, karaoke, s’mores, etc. That all feels very wholesome and essential to what makes Manifest an exceptional event.
The “edgy” thing — attendees being purposefully inflammatory, using slurs, making others feel unwelcome, etc. — is totally unrelated. Not wholesome. Not a thing to be proud of. Not a thing we aspire to.
I think we could choose to kill the festival part of Manifest, and run a professional forecasting conference at some generic conference hotel, and still choose to invite Hanania. Alternatively, we could invite only the kindest, most welcoming, least offensive people we know, to come hang out and sing songs and chat about forecasting by the fire at Lighthaven. The former might be edgy and not fun, while the latter might be fun and not edgy. These are unrelated.