it unquestionably violated one of the strongest taboos that exists in the year 2023… Note that I’m not asking anyone to disregard epistemic integrity, or even necessarily compromise it… On this forum, that default should favor social welfare consequences.
If epistimic integrity violates a social taboo, then you are asking people to compromise it; you shouldn’t just handwave that away because that’s uncomfortable. Own the tradeoff if you’re going to ask for it.
This also assumes that not violating a taboo is inherently supportive of the social welfare, which I do not believe is the case. Social taboos have been wrong many, many times before, and EA is already taboo-violating and offensive to various swathes of the population. How and by whom is it decided which taboos should be obeyed and which should be violated?
I don’t imagine you’d suggest EA, had it existed in 1950, should have ignored civil rights, but favoring segregation would’ve been the dominant social position at the time and fighting for desegregation was violating a strong taboo. Or I’m wrong, and you would suggest a policy of strategic silence where local taboos are concerned?
It was confusing writing, and I’m surprised Miller didn’t bring this up in his reply, but my interpretation is that the two aren’t actually connected except by loose ideological affiliation.
Blank Slate is mentioned as the “far-left” counterpoint to Bostrom’s theory as the topic of discussion. It is, AFAIK, a considerably younger “theory” than communism and is not related to communism’s failures.
The example of communism is brought up because you only call out “far-right ideas” causing enormous suffering, while ignoring that “far-left” ideas have also caused enormous suffering. Communism is the last century’s far-left failure mode and horror show; funny that people so often forget about all that.
Had you left out the partisan phrasing, I don’t think Miller would’ve taken any issue with your post, and I would’ve found it a stronger post as well. EA doesn’t require promotion of infohazards, and there’s no reason to implicitly suggest that infohazards can only come from one side of the spectrum.