AnonEALeftist
Comments9
Glad to hear it.
But I think it's probably a psychological fact that if a group of critics keeps calling your ideas some combination of "moral corruption", "the dumbest idea", "excuses for the rich" and "white supremacist/fascist"[2], then you'll probably just stop responding to their work.
I understand. I never take this stuff personally myself. I even think it's more important to engage with criticism (provided you are headstrong for it - at that time and place) if it's espescially disagreeable/ hostile.
I haven't read Crary but it's on my list. The headline for McGoey's piece is quite harsh, but there's no real nice way to say some of these things (e.g. "excuses for the rich" isn't that much nicer from what Kemp says about EA being captured by billionaire interests). These critics sincerely hold these positions - whilst it's head for us to hear - it wouldn't be right for them to water down their criticisms either.
And ultimately, doesn't EA deserve harsh criticism, with the spate of scandals that have emerged & emerging? If it's ultimately good for EA in the end - bring it on! More critcism is good.
Thank you JWS. Really appreciate your comments.
For example, I find it very difficult to see Crary's criticism of EA as being in good faith, and I don't think this is just because she's not framing her arguments in EA language/terms, but even when EA is critical of the Left, I don't think we call Leftism "a straightforward case of moral corruption".
I have seen some EA's accuse certain critiques as bad faith where I found them the opposite, and have seen attacks on Leftists (e.g. leftmism would make EA less analytical in the above comment). So I think a lot of this is due to differences in worldview/perspective.
But I certainly agree that there are some critiques of EA that are genuinely poorly done.
In terms of critiques I like:
- Kemp makes great points about EAs being captured by wealthy interests
- McGoey makes good points about EA culture, e.g. EAs generally being ignorant of the role the IMF/WTO have played in exacerbating global poverty
But also in terms of left wing EA support, Garrison Lovely, Rutger Bregman, & Habiba of 80K.
Sorry Richard, I meant no disrepsect. And I appreciate you acknowledging that there are leftsist EAs.
Without wanting to do guilt-by-association, I simply wanted to express that there would have been a clear benefit to having a more left-wing EA, since leftists are more critical of cryptocurrencies etc. There were many EAs who did the right thing warning about cryptocurrency/SBF, but they were smaller in number, and overlooked by the community. So apologies I went too far maligning all libertarians/non-leftists.
Well half of you do and half of you don't. The OP for example is defending the Manifest guestlist.
And for people like him who want defend these conferences for having interesting controversial people, why not actually have some confronting controversial people? Instead it's always libertarians and neoliberals spouting the same tired old race psuedoscience.