[Linkpost] Nick Bostrom's "Apology for an Old Email"

Some historical context on this issue. If Bostrom's original post was written around 1996 (as I've seen some people suggest), that was just after the height of the controversy over 'The Bell Curve' book (1994) by Richard Herrnstein & Charles Murray.

In response to the firestorm around that book, the American Psychological Association appointed a blue-ribbon committee of 11 highly respected psychologists and psychometricians to evaluate the Bell Curve's empirical claims. They published a report in 1996 on their findings, which you can read here, and summarized here. The APA committee affirmed most of the Bell Curve's key claims, and concluded that there were well-established group differences in average general intelligence, but that the reasons for the differences were not yet clear.

More recently, Charles Murray has reviewed the last 30 years of psychometric and genetic evidence in his book Human Diversity (2020), and in his shorter, less technical book Facing Reality (2021).

This is the most controversial topic in all of the behavioral sciences. EAs might be prudent to treat this whole controversy as an information hazard, in which learning about the scientific findings can be socially and professionally dangerous. But it is worth noting that there is a  big gap between what intelligence researchers have actually found, versus what most social scientists, journalists, and activists believe. 

Epistemic status: As a psychology professor, I've worked on intelligence research for over 20 years, was on the editorial board of the journal Intelligence, and have published 3 books and 11 papers on the evolutionary origins, functions, genetics, and structure of human intelligence, which have been cited a few thousand times. However I've never worked directly on, or published on, group differences in intelligence.

The original email (written 26 years ago) was horrible, but Bostrom's apology seems reasonable.

If you look at the most horrible thing that every each person has done in their entire life, it's likely that almost everyone (in that age) has done things that are at least as horrible as writing that email.

The OP reads as if it was optimized to cause as much drama as possible, rather than for pro-social goals.

Skimming the comments so far, I'd appreciate if people would keep the "Be kind" part of the forum norm trifecta more in front of their minds:

Be kind.

• Stay civil, at the minimum. Don’t sneer or be snarky. In general, assume good faith. We may delete unnecessary rudeness and issue warnings or bans for it.
• Substantive disagreements are fine and expected. Disagreements help us find the truth and are part of healthy communication.

This post touches on topics that are very emotionally difficult and controversial for many. I tentatively recommend that if you're very angry or upset, it might be  sufficiently difficult to be civil and charitable such that you might want to hold off on immediately engaging a lot in the comments here. Maybe first:

• share your thoughts and feelings with friends,
• write down your thoughts and what you want to share in this forum privatly, and
• wait at least a couple hours until you feel less urgently angry and indignant and only then share your thoughts here.

(I downvoted a few comments because I think they failed to be charitable and/or civil. But as I think this specific topic is very difficult to deal with, I hope the downvotes will not generally discourage people from engaging in this forum as I believe they generally come with good intentions.)

As you’re reading this old email and the ‘apology’, instead of diving into debates about race, IQ, consequentialism, reputation and PR, please think about how black EAs and longtermists are feeling reading all of this.

A few points that I think are important to make anytime conversation gets anywhere near the object level on this topic:

•  No one's moral worth is determined by their performance on an IQ test
• Black people face significant amount of adversity
• This adversity explains a great deal of measured IQ disparities
• IQ disparities have been used as an excuse to justify racism and to avoid properly addressing racism of all forms
• Being told that a group you identify with has a lower than average IQ feels really shitty

With all that being said, is there any place at all for the object level question in our discourse? I don’t know.

I haven't had a chance to read the whole blog post, but note for general information David Thorstad's blog post on this, which alleges:

Unfortunately, Bostrom’s email was not an isolated incident. The Extropians were widely involved in a number of explicitly racist, sexist and otherwise lamentable incidents that Bostrom cannot possibly have failed to be aware of at the time, and many of their former members occupy high positions within the effective altruism movement today.

https://ineffectivealtruismblog.com/2023/01/12/off-series-that-bostrom-email/

(apologies for formatting, on mobile)

Want to note on this thread that CEA has published a statement on this: "Effective altruism is based on the core belief that all people count equally. We unequivocally condemn Nick Bostrom’s recklessly flawed and reprehensible words. We reject this unacceptable racist language, and the callous discussion of ideas that can and have harmed Black people. It is fundamentally inconsistent with our mission of building an inclusive and welcoming community."

Ugh. Painful to read.

Here as everywhere the key, to keep sane, is to hold a number of thoughts simultaneously:

1) The original email is horribly racist and indefensible. Just awful.

2) The author seems to have evolved since and should be given the benefit of the doubt.

3) Sincerely apologizing for past misdeeds is good in and of itself.

4) Descending on anyone who attempts to apologize without crediting them for the apology only emboldens those who will see the outcome and conclude that it is better not to apologize at all.

5) Thinkers are not gods or saints and should not be treated as such .

6) There is no "original sin". It is good for you to hold ideas that are good for the world. If someone else who holds ideas that are good for the world also holds ideas that are bad for the world, you are not responsible and should not feel guilty about it.

7) It is unproductive to think of "intellectual leaders", ther status, and their reputation in general. Intellectual leaders gain their status from pushing ideas that you find convincing. It is the ideas that you should focus on. Your duty is to keep  and promote the ones that work, get rid of the ones that don't.

8) Because people hold a mix of contradictory ideas, if you focus on the people, you will find yourself tied to ideas you disagree with and make yourself vulnerable to guilt-by-association.

9) Ideas held by the same people are not necessarily correlated in the realm of ideas. If they are, there must be a  demonstrable rational mechanism by which they are. (If, for instance, this email had been written by a far right anti-immigration politician who spends his time writing about the "great replacement", you could find a clear intellectual connection.)

10) In fact, people often hold two ideas that seem negatively correlated in the rational realm. For example, many Christians are in favour of violent retaliation, even as a concept (not to mention in practice).

11) Can you find a mechanism by which EA ideas correlate with racism? They would seem to be at complete odds. One of the central moral premises of EA is cosmopolitanism and the impartial good, the idea that human beings have inherent moral worth and dignity regardless of where they come from. Which is why, for example, EAs often get accused of trying to prioritize "the far" over "the near". 

12) What about rationalism? In principle, rationalism has less of an inherent defense mechanism against racism than EA ideas. In particular, there is a form of adolescent rationalism which goes something like this: a) it is good to be intelligent and rational b) not all people are similarly intelligent and rational c) find a reason why the other people are the ones who are dumb (in fact, the more different, the dumber) and I am smart. There is an idea of ranking in b) which does have some idea-level correlation with elitism, solipsism, condescension, and various  dehumanizing worldviews. However, rationalism also has a natural counter against racism which is that c) in that adolescent version is pure irrational silliness - the idea collapses on itself. Therefore embracing the adolescent version tells more about your character than it does about rationalism itself.

TDLR : That Bostrom used to be racist does not mean that it is a bad idea to give money to help the global poor in effective ways or to try to prevent nuclear wars from happening

EA has become big enough to weather such a storm, especially since stemming against the ever-increasing number of calls for struggle sessions should become a central EA cause area. People need to be able to speak their minds and be judged by their deeds and impact, not by some demonstrably uncharitable reading of their thoughts. The latter seems motivated mainly by an attempt to stir up a denunciation rally, likely because somebody didn't like the intellectual content Bostrom is known for.

It is also important to keep adult public discourse policing sane enough that no one gets lambasted for saying or writing something like "People seem to react equally enraged by someone wondering aloud about specific IQ differences in populations, as by someone shouting 'I hate those bloody n-words!!!'". People get riled up over this as if this was some teenage utterance of the form "I know I am not supposed to say 'n-word', and therefore I would never say 'n-word', even if someone, whom others might call a 'n-word' were to walk by and complain to me that people often call him a 'n-word', especially since his grandmother has been called 'n-word', much like his mother who has also been called 'n-word' ..." and so forth, specially compiled to strafe a taboo. Obviously one should intervene in such a case. Doesn't mean adults shouldn't be able to spell out the term when they talk about it while not using it as a slur. Preemptively treating people like children is what ruins modern discourse.

And the musings on population differences, well, a lot has been said and written about those. Concluding they may very well exist isn't necessarily malevolent. Instead, an honest discussion about this might be the key to solving the genuine problems of those populations in a way that affirmative action and explaining away certain facts haven't. The intellectual dishonesty on this topic runs incredibly deep and is far more expansive than just population differences and race. Think a politician talking about 'the uneducated' as a social class, that's pretty much acceptable. Speaking about the 'intellectually challenged' however is wrongthink, the overlap between these two groups equally in the realm of career-ending topics for all but the most established scientists. The missteps science in its infancy made with these topics cannot be grounds to suppress a rational discussion of how to deal with inherent human differences for the benefit of all forever.

(this comment previously got deleted by the moderators because it contained 'n-word' several times, a decision with which I vigorously disagree)

Bostrom is claiming the right to not engage with a subject, and this right is a necessity to have an inclusive EA-movement.

I downvoted this post because it is propagating a norm that I expect to be damaging. 

Some thoughts:

• Totally agree that this "has real implications for the movement's future, including selection effects on people who may become more uncertain about the views that intellectual leaders of the EA/longtermism movement hold (and by extension, its intellectual foundations), whether EA is a community for 'people like them', and whether EA is a movement that is well-equipped to preserve a future for all of humanity." I'm worried that this statement will deter people from collaborating with or joining AI labs, for example.
• I think this could have been avoided if more EA orgs, including FHI, had some kind of PR function instead of leaving all the heavy lifting to CEA. I've said as much here.

While I agree that these kinds of "bad EA optics" posts are generally unproductive and it makes sense for them to get downvoted, I'm surprised that this specific one isn't getting more upvoted? Unlike most links to hit pieces and criticisms of EA, this post actually contains new information that has changed my perception of EA and EA leadership. 

Bostrom appears not to realise that "I hate these bloody [racial slur]s!" is not the only form racism can take. Believing that black people are more stupid than white people is also racist. I am not convinced that he no longer believes this. I am deeply disappointed by his apology (more than I am by his original email).

Had Bostrom left out the  paragraph quoted by the OP, the apology would read very differently.   In the prior paragraph he wrote:

I also think that it is deeply unfair that unequal access to education, nutrients, and basic healthcare leads to inequality in social outcomes, including sometimes disparities in skills and cognitive capacity.

This, if left to its own, would have stood as a strong  statement on equity.

By adding the following paragraph on genetics, Bostrom implies the opposite of his claimed indifference to the genetics of race.  Announcing that you " leave to others" the question of genetic factors in intelligence by race, rings of an invitation to weigh this matter.

It is surprising to see a community of rationalists so opposed to Bostrom’s original point, which is that object level discussions of potentially uncomfortable truths are best avoided in general company, but useful among rationalists.

I am especially disappointed in Bostrom himself, who seems to hedge on a belief he still clearly believes to be empirically valid.

Genetic differences in intelligence are certainly an impolite discussion, but Bostrom’s original framing coincides with my view; intelligence is not tied to moral worth or human dignity, but, for a moral philosophy focused on improving wellbeing, the topic is worth exploring.

Blank slate naivety should not have a home in a rationalist community, and we should embrace evidence regardless of what truths it leads to. I would be much more comfortable with a debate on the merits of evidence and ramifications than dismissal on aesthetic grounds of “racism.” At the least, we could discuss hereditarianism as in information hazard, but the outright dismissal of a strongly supported position seems at odds with the principles of this community.

This is clearly absolutely awful. The reality is there is little that most people can do about it because EA is a set of principles not an organisation. There is no membership and no elections, which I think is for the best. It is up to a handful of organizations where Bostrum is involved to make decisions about what to do in response to this. I hope they make the decision with the reputation of the broader EA movement in mind and free from personal biases.

The way he is speaking in the email is offensive, and good that he has apologized for it. 

The finding that generally many groups of black people have on average lower IQ than than the median is pretty robust, and he does make it clear even in the initial emailthat he doesn't think they are morally inferior or that he doesn't hold the actual negative views about them that one might associate with this language.

I think Michael Dennis makes some good points in this thread. He says there are some hypotheses you just don't explore, for consequentialist reasons. Infohazards, essentially.

1. I hate those words, it is not me.
2. Look how much I have done for black people.
3. But are black people genetically inferior? I don't know,  I am not an expert. I am just asking the question.

Donald Trump could have published this. I don't know if Bostrom understands this, but this formulation is practically a textbook racist dogwhistle .

It does seem clear though that Bostrom is not apologizing for his views,  he just regrets getting caught using a slur, and is upset people might actually judge him.

[This comment has been removed by the moderation team.]

Scientific Racism is definitely considered acceptable in the EA community and lots of the leadership support it. I would bet Bostrom still supports HBD. He doesn't even deny this in his apology!