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pseudonym10
22
21

Bostrom's apology seems reasonable.

I disagree with this, I think the apology, presumably carefully considered, is as bad as, if not worse, than the original email (at least, the apology contributes to a larger proportion of my negative update than the email written 26 years ago). I also think the apology was poorly written, and I would be surprised if this was signed off by a PR or comms expert.

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

Happy to hear constructive feedback, and am curious about what gives you this impression. I think there are clear ways this post could have been worded and framed in a way that would cause more drama. I'm sharing in part because I care about the EA community, and I think this may be useful information for the EA community to know about and engage with, and in part because the individual who shared this post with me found it disconcerting that no one had spoken out against it yet. I resonated with this, and didn't want other community members to feel similarly.

The people who I discussed this with prior to posting agreed that we didn't want this post to prompt object level IQ debates, which are usually unproductive, but also not highlight the PR angle too much, since as other commenters alluded to, this isn't and shouldn't be seen as the primary concern.

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See in context
by pseudonym
2 min read 96

16

CommunityBuilding effective altruismExistential riskCriticism of the effective altruism communityDiversity and inclusionBioethicsCriticism of effective altruismNick Bostrom
Personal Blog
This is a linkpost for https://nickbostrom.com/oldemail.pdf

Trigger warning: racism.

I personally found this letter incredibly difficult to read. Beyond the content of the email, the apology is also terribly written, and reads like Nick, an intellectual leader in EA and longtermism, might still hold these views today to some degree. It also reads like Nick is primarily just trying to do damage control for using a racial slur, or preemptive PR work for some other reason, as opposed to focusing on the harms he may be contributing to, and the folks he is apologizing to. In this context, this also sounds like a dog-whistle:

Are there any genetic contributors to differences between groups in cognitive abilities? It is not my area of expertise, and I don’t have any particular interest in the question. I would leave to others, who have more relevant knowledge, to debate whether or not in addition to environmental factors, epigenetic or genetic factors play any role.

Myself and other EAs I know are worried about professional reputational risks of continued association with the EA movement or longtermism. This is not just a PR risk, and despite my view that this reflects terribly on Nick and any comms experts who may have been involved in this, I don't want this to imply that the PR angle is what we should be primarily concerned about here-it isn't! But whether or not one of the leaders of EA has held racist views for decades, and whether he still basically holds them today is important.

It 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. Even if they aren't uncertain, they may be more reluctant to take risks to continue or become more outwardly involved in an increasingly controversial social movement. This may also affect the view of current and prospective donors to EA causes.

These are not concerns held solely by "EA outsiders" or those who are already unsympathetic to EA.

 

Reactions on Twitter-read on at your own peril!

 

(The EA forum seems to default to strong-upvotes on your own posts. I don't know why this is, but I'll probably change mine to a normal upvote if this post gets some engagement.)

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Geoffrey Miller92
20
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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 s... (read more)

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LizkaModerator Comment86
25
2

A short note as a moderator (echoing a commenter): People (understandably) have strong feelings about discussions that focus on race, and many of us found the linked content difficult to read. This means that it's both harder to keep to Forum norms when responding to this, and (I think) especially important.

Please keep this in mind if you decide to engage in this discussion, and try to remember that most people on the Forum are here for collaborative discussions about doing good.

If you have any specific concerns, you can also always reach out to the moderation team at forum-moderation@effectivealtruism.org.

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Ofer75
34
31

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.

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Amber Dawn22
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First, I don't think I've ever expressed a view as horrible as that.  I don't want to make myself out to be a saint or something, and maybe I've done more harmful if less obviously spicy things (e.g., I ate a bunch of animals in my youth). But I'm reflexively sceptical of defences which are like "oh, surely everyone makes mistakes". I think it's ok to have high standards, and lots of people get through their youth managing not to make egregiously racist statements.

But this isn't my crux; my crux is that the apology doesn't ring sincere to me. He says lots of words about repudiating the email, but like...I don't understand why he said it at the time, and what changed in his opinions to make him apologize for it at the time, and reject it now. I agree with some other commenters that it's not clear that he thinks this is object-level bad vs PR-bad. 

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Richard Y Chappell🔸64
33
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I don't understand why he said it at the time

Doesn't the first sentence of his old email make this part fairly clear?  It sounds like he's talking about the classic edgelord thing of enjoying the tension between intuitive repugnance and (what he took to be) logical truth on a strictly literal reading, when divorced of all subtext (which is presumably not what any reasonable person would ordinarily take the claims in question to communicate).  Perhaps similar to how many philosophers find logical paradoxes invigorating. (Cf. Scott Alexander's classic post on related issues.)

That's not to defend it, and I agree his apology isn't sufficiently clear about why his particular example was so egregiously poorly-chosen.  But it does strike me as most likely stemming from neuro-atypicality rather than racist intent, for whatever that's worth. (Many understandably care more about racist effects than racist intent, but I mention the latter here since you seem be to be asking about Bostrom's motivations, and that does seem relevant to assessments of blameworthiness.)

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Ofer
(Not sure whether this clarification is needed, but just in case...) When I wrote "If you look at the most horrible thing that every person has done in their entire life[…]" I meant: "If for every person you look at the most horrible thing that that person has done[…]" (I.e. it can be a completely different thing for each person.) I've edited my comment to make that clear.
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Chris Leong
I believe you when you say that you might not have expressed a thought as horrible as that, but from the opposite end, statements like "racism against  people who privileged is impossible" are completely common within the social justice movement and objectively worse, at least from my point of view. I was disappointed to see that he wrote that he wrote that email, but at least Bostrom was being edgy when arguing that we shouldn't be edgy. And insofar as we would like there to be less "edge-lording",  if people are going to be edgy in the service of anything, I suppose being edgy as an argument against being edgy is among the less bad reasons to be edgy. Though, of course,  it does rather counterproductive. In any case, his intent - to encourage people to not needlessly offend people - wasn't horrible - even if the execution was. Intent isn't everything, but it's something.
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pseudonym
"Racism against people who are privileged is impossible" is objectively worse than what view specifically?
Chris Leong10
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First all, I think it's clearly much worse than some mentioning  the n-word directly rather than replacing it with the string "n-word", especially in the 90s social context.

Secondly, I think that the focus on labeling people who lean towards there being a genetic difference in population means as bad is mistaken given that the threat is actually people who try to leverage this claimed difference politically or attempt to inject their belief in this difference into as many conversations as possible.  I think once we have in mind precisely which subset of people we should be worried about, then my position on what is worse ends up being quite natural.

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SantaRKlaas
pseudonym10
22
21

Bostrom's apology seems reasonable.

I disagree with this, I think the apology, presumably carefully considered, is as bad as, if not worse, than the original email (at least, the apology contributes to a larger proportion of my negative update than the email written 26 years ago). I also think the apology was poorly written, and I would be surprised if this was signed off by a PR or comms expert.

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

Happy to hear constructive feedback, and am curious about what gives you this impression. I think there are clear ways this post could have been worded and framed in a way that would cause more drama. I'm sharing in part because I care about the EA community, and I think this may be useful information for the EA community to know about and engage with, and in part because the individual who shared this post with me found it disconcerting that no one had spoken out against it yet. I resonated with this, and didn't want other community members to feel similarly.

The people who I discussed this with prior to posting agreed that we didn't want this post to prompt object level IQ debates, which are usually unproductive, but also not highlight the PR angle too much, since as other commenters alluded to, this isn't and shouldn't be seen as the primary concern.

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Lukas_Gloor78
24
4

To add one more person's impression, I agree with ofer that he apology was "reasonable," I disagree with him that your post "reads as if it was optimized to cause as much drama as possible, rather than for pro-social goals," and I agree with Amber Dawn that the original email is somewhat worse than something I'd have expected most people to have in their past. (That doesn't necessarily mean it deserves any punishment decades later and with the apology –non-neurotyptical people can definitely make a lot of progress between, say, early twenties and later in life, in understanding how their words affect others and how edginess isn't the same as being sophisticated.)

I think this is one of these "struggles of norms" where you can't have more than one sacred principle, and ofer's and my position is something like "it should be okay to say 'I don't know what's true' on a topic where the truth seems unclear ((but not, e.g., something like Holocaust denial))." Because a community that doesn't prioritize truth-seeking will run into massive troubles, so even if there's a sense in which kindness is ultimately more important than truth-seeking (I definitely think so!), it just doesn't make sense as an instrumental norm to treat it as sacred (so that one essentially forces people to say things that might be false or else they are punished).

Separately from that, I think it's bad to reinforce the idea that group averages have any normative relevance whatsoever. If we speak as though the defence against racism is empirically finding that all intelligence differences for group averages are at most environmentally-caused, then that's a weak defence against racism! It's "weak" because it could turn out to be false. But in reality, I don't think there's any possible finding that could make us think "racism is okay." In my view, not being racist – in the sense that has moral significance for me – means that (1) you're not more inclined to falsely reach a conclusion about people from a different ethnicity than you'd reach the same conclusion about (e.g.) your own ethnicity and (2) when you consider "candidates" (in whatever context) with equal characteristics/interests/qualifications, etc., you're not more inclined to treat some worse than others based solely on their ethnicity. If we hold this view, we get to relax to about what could be found out about group averages. 

That said, I do agree that there's very little, if anything, to gain from discussions about group averages, and that the people who are eager to bring up the topic seem morally suspicious. (In this specific case of Bostrom_2023 writing the apology, it's not like he could have chosen to avoid the topic entirely – so given the mistakes he made 26 years ago, he had to address it again.)
 

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Ofer2
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and I agree with Amber Dawn that the original email is somewhat worse than something I'd have expected most people to have in their past.

When I wrote "If you look at the most horrible thing that every person has done in their entire life[…]" I meant: "If for every person you look at the most horrible thing that that person has done[…]" (I.e. it can be a completely different thing for each person.) I've edited my comment to make that clear.

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Jeroen Willems🔸3
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How does this change the meaning? (Genuine question) You're still saying it's likely almost everyone has done things like that email or worse, which seems unlikely to me.

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Lukas_Gloor10
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It changes the emphasis a bit from "written evidence" (and "expressed worldviews") to "anything whatsoever." 

E.g., if classrooms in 2005 had CCTV, you could find a video of my 14-year-old self deliberately mispronouncing someone else's name to make it sound dumb and making a comment about them having "girly" hair after someone else had already started making fun of him. I think that video would be similarly hard to watch as the original Bostrom email is hard to read.

edit: At least on some dimensions of "hard to watch"? I understand the view that Bostrom's comments were much worse, but I think there's something especially jarring about expressed lack of empathy when the person who's being hurt is right in front of you, as opposed to saying dumb stuff in a small/closed setting to be intellectually edgy. 

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Jinx12
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Unless people here have a far better story than "Eugenics is horrible because eugenics!" behind their usage of the word 'horrible' with respect to Bostrom's words I suggest they stop using it. This is the EA forum after all and we ought to do better here than circular logic.

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Ofer3
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You're still saying it's likely almost everyone has done things like that email or worse, which seems unlikely to me.

Consider a random human who spent about 278,860 hours as an adult person on earth (as Bostrom has, according to Wikipedia). Let's label that random person as "extremely morally robust" if during those 278,860 hours they have not once done something at least as horrible as writing that email (as a philosophy student, in a discussion about offending people, in 1995).

Suppose someone is robust to the point that the chance of them doing something at least as horrible in a random hour of their adult life is like the chance to flip a coin and get heads 15 times in a row. Even that hypothetical human is very unlikely (~0.02% chance) to get the "extremely morally robust" label as defined above.

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SantaRKlaas-2
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That said, I do agree that there's very little, if anything, to gain from discussions about group averages, and that the people who are eager to bring up the topic seem morally suspicious

 

Racial disparities are a key political/culture wars topic. There's nothing suspicious about enumerating regressors.

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MaxRa67
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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.)

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Amber Dawn50
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I agree with the vibe of this but disagree with the specific advice, maybe? I think if we discourage people from commenting when they're feeling strong emotions, we miss out on valuable information. You suggest waiting for a few hours, but first, I think emotional first reactions are information (it's information if something makes people angry! info about the values of the EA movement, or about how bad Bostrom's comments are, for example); and secondly, some people might just not come back, or they might never cease to be emotional about the issue. Communicating in the standard detached Forum way might just feel dishonest to them. This means that the consensus becomes skewed to those who are less emotionally-activated by the issue. So in situations like this, people who are more forgiving or who think it's not that bad or who just have more muted emotions or more reserved communication styles will dominate the discussion. 
 

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Geoffrey Miller32
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Amber -- I strongly disagree with this take. Almost everything that EAs try to talk about dispassionately and objectively could be talked about reactively and emotionally with great intensity, if we didn't show enormous self-control and self-awareness  -- and that would ruin the entire ethos and culture of EA Forum.

Everyone who really, deeply values animal welfare could react emotionally to every discussion of that topic. Every who really, deeply dreads global thermonuclear war could react emotionally to every discussion of that topics. And so on. The whole point of the EA movement is to try to grapple with extremely large-scale, high-stakes problems that most people can't think about  rationally or empirically, using reason and evidence as best we can. 

There's nothing intrinsically or uniquely emotional about race differences issues, apart from the current cultural context that racism in Western liberal academic cultures is uniquely stigmatized compared to every other moral failing in modern life. 

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3[anonymous]
"racism in Western liberal academic cultures is uniquely stigmatized compared to every other moral failing in modern life." According to the Collins Dictionary: "If someone or something is stigmatized, they are unfairly regarded by many people as being bad or having something to be ashamed of." In essence, when you argue that racism is being unjustly singled out among a myriad of other moral failings, you are suggesting that it is not as important or as bad as it is made to be. However, it's crucial to understand the gravity and the pervasive nature of racism. Racism is not just a moral failing; it is a systemic issue that has been deeply ingrained in societies for centuries. It has tangible and detrimental effects on the lives of individuals, communities, and entire societies. It affects access to resources, opportunities, and justice, and it perpetuates inequality and division. While it's true that there are many other moral failings that deserve attention and rectification, the focus on racism does not imply that these other issues are less important or less harmful. Rather, the emphasis on racism is a reflection of its widespread impact and the urgent need for change. Therefore, it's not accurate or fair to say that racism is being unjustly singled out or stigmatized. Instead, the spotlight on racism is a necessary and justified part of the broader struggle for justice, equality, and moral integrity. 1. Racism's Historical and Ongoing Impact: Racism has had a profound and lasting impact on marginalized communities, from slavery and colonization to modern-day systemic racism. Its effects are pervasive and long-lasting, affecting every aspect of life, from education and employment to health and housing. This is not to say that other moral failings are not important, but the scope and scale of racism's impact make it a particularly urgent issue to address. 2. Racism is Systemic: Unlike many other moral failings, racism is not just an individual failing but
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TheoC
I find this comment pretty patronising, and echo Amber Dawn’s point about this leading to discussion only being accepted by those who are sufficiently emotionally detached from an issue (which tends to be people who aren’t directly impacted). To me, this comment sounds like it is saying that if you are angry about this then you are being irrational, and should wait to calm down before commenting. Anger can be a perfectly rational response, and excessive tone policing can suppress marginalised voices from the conversation.
MaxRa28
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Thanks for the pushback (I also appreciated Amber's response). I agree that there's a risk of taking the direction of my comment too far, and I agree that anger is a fully valid emotion and it's fully valid and informative/useful to communicate it here.

What I do still believe is that anger makes productive discourse more difficult, and I think that many comments here are cases of that happening. When I get angry, I'm less patient, I feel more like I'm in a fight and that I want to win an argument as opposed to understand the situation better and contribute my perspective to a shared process of understanding and decision-making. In case you're familiar, in EA terms I think that anger moves me away from a "scout mindset" and towards a "soldier mindset".

I'm currently not convinced that in this discussion, and in the EA forum in general, sharing emotions is discouraged to a degree that is worrying and discourages affected groups and individuals, and I'd be sad if that impression is false. What I see as discouraged is uncivility, uncharitability and snark, and I suspect it only seems like there are more downvotes for emotional comments because of the "anger -> impatience" mechanism.

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freedomandutility56
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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.

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freedomandutility
What could EA do to try to heal the hurt that this is going to cause to black EAs? We need prominent EAs to publicly condemn Bostrom’s language, publicly reject race science, and reaffirm EA’s aim to be welcoming to black people. Also frankly, the comments here show some ridiculous failures of empathy. This needs to be worked on as a community.
𝕮𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖗𝖆77
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I don't really like this thing where you speak on behalf of black EAs.

I think you should let black EAs speak for themselves or not comment on it.

In my experience, there seems to be distortionary epistemic effects when someone speaks on behalf of a minority group. Often, the person so speaking assigns them harms, injustices or offenses that the relevant members of those groups may not actually endorse.

When it's done on my behalf, I find it pretty patronising, and it's annoying/icky?

I don't want to speak for black EAs but it's not clear to me that the "hurt" you mention is actually real.

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Mica White
I'm shocked by how much disagreement this has. This is the bare minimum if you ask me
leo50055
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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.

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WolfBullmann
Jason29
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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)

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Eevee🔹
I think it's worth posting this as a top-level linkpost if it hasn't been already.
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Jason
I'll defer to someone else as I'm at work and not in a position to carefully read the long blog post and then say something meaningful about the whole.
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AnonymousEAForumAccount
Thanks for linking to that information about the history of the Extropians. Very informative and provides helpful context.
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pseudonym
agree with this (and with the other comment that this could warrant a separate linkpost), have strong-upvoted the comment in the meantime.
Shakeel Hashim21
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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."

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Jinx
[anonymous]14
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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 mi... (read more)

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Eevee🔹
I, for one, see that longtermism is animated by the same cosmopolitanism that motivates EA in general. But Emile Torres and co. don't see it that way. Torres thinks that longtermism itself is linked to white supremacist and rich-world supremacist beliefs. Since many people nowadays first hear about longtermism from Emile Torres's hit pieces, they are likely to conclude that longtermism is racist and rich-worldist.
Jinx8
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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 en... (read more)

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Søren Elverlin8
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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. 

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pseudonym
What's the damaging norm this post is propagating? I'm not asking Bostrom to engage with this subject.
Søren Elverlin17
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The current norm is that people have a right to not engage with a subject. It looks to me like this post disagrees with this norm. I base this on the following quotes:

Bostrom: It is not my area of expertise, and I don’t have any particular interest in the question. I would leave to others...
pseudonym: ...this reflects terribly on Nick...

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Jason
People can lose their "right to not engage" by previously engaging and causing associated harms. At a bare minimum, that section of the apology can be read as implying that both sides of a debate have valid points. But if you're claiming non-engaged status, you should be careful to avoid giving both sides the aura of legitimacy without having done your due diligence.
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pseudonym
To be clear, that part of the comment was talking about how I think the apology seems pretty poorly written as a PR statement, and not because I think Nick broke some norm I feel strongly about upholding. That said, even if I take the view (that others do), that Nick should engage with the subject when he is making a public apology about the subject matter at hand, I don't think it propagates the norm in a general context. I basically agree with Jason here, and don't understand why he's being downvoted, even if people disagree. If you are apologizing for a statement that is easily read to mean you believe white people are superior to black people ("I like this comment and think it is true"), and then in your apology you say something that's easily read to mean: "Well, are black people actually worth the same as white people? I leave that to experts to debate the question" It's not going to be interpreted as non-engagement.
Eevee🔹5
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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
... (read more)
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Jeroen Willems🔸
Why is this comment being downvoted? I can understand the disagree votes, I'm uncertain whether I agree myself, but it doesn't seem to disrespect any forum norms or to be argued in bad faith.
Karthik Tadepalli13
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I didn't downvote, but I think it's bad to focus on the optical concerns over the object level concerns about the statement. "This statement if bad because it might reduce engagement with EA" may be true but it's probably not the first order badness, just like the first order badness of FTX was fraud and not the harms to EA.

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Gideon Futerman
There is the other side as well: not only is this bad because one person expressed racist sentiment, but it is particularly bad because that person is considered a thought leader in EA and so this could make the EA community a considerably less welcoming environment for black people ( although I wouldn't like to speak on their behalf)
-1[anonymous]
Correct. It seems strange to me that there's a lot of whitewashing happening here. Instead of viewing the situation through an objective lens, some are glossing over the fact that he didn't truly apologize. He began his letter with "But I fear that selected pieces of the most offensive stuff will be extracted, maliciously framed and interpreted, and used in smear campaigns," expressing a wish that this email had remained buried, rather than taking responsibility and not blaming the messenger. This is not an admission of wrongdoing; instead, it shows contempt for anyone asking him to take responsibility for his actions as an adult.
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Jason
I think the point about PR resources was helpful (although I think they should not be paid by the organization in a case like this). This apology could have been done much better, in a way that would have been more effective in mitigating the harm Bostrom caused to Black people here. I don't know him at all, but most people who just learned that someone is about to publish an expose about past misbehavior would benefit from someone to help them express their apology more effectively. Many of us like to criticize PR as an industry, including me, but one of its benefits is that it gets someone who is not emotionally invested in the room in situations with high emotion and time pressure. That can help someone write the statement that they would have written if they had time and space to regain control of their emotions, which the modern news/info cycle does not allow.
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Aleks_K
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. Bostrom works for Oxford University who have a PR department. From his statement is seems unlikely to me, though that he asked them (or any other PR experts) for advice.
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Jason
I am not sure I see running PR for something like this as a valid use of organizational resources. To use lawyer-speak, these Internet postings were way outside Bostrom’s scope of employment both substantively and temporally. It's unclear why FHI or any other organization should have to devote resources to cleaning up after employees for non-work situations where the employee was clearly at fault. I do think it would be helpful for there to be a list of various professionals, including PR folks, for EAs to call in various sorts of situations. But Bostrom should be paying for any PR help out of pocket.
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Guy Raveh
Or, alternatively, if EAs stopped prioritising "openness to all ideas" above "disavowing people with hurtful and dangerous views".
oh543213
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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. 

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Lukas_Gloor34
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If the post had just been making the forum readers aware of the controversy and added some commentary along the lines "this was really hard to read and was really disappointing," then I would've upvoted it (I see it the same way.) 

However, the OP also highlights a particular paragraph in the apology (about the cause of differences in group averages) and implies that Bostrom's uncertainty about it and his statement "and I don’t have any particular interest in the question" means that he holds morally repugnant views or at least doesn't sufficiently condemn them. 

I explained here why I don't agree with this. To quote from that comment:

I think it's bad to reinforce the idea that group averages have any normative relevance whatsoever. If we speak as though the defence against racism is empirically finding that all intelligence differences for group averages are at most environmentally-caused, then that's a weak defence against racism! It's "weak" because it could turn out to be false. But in reality, I don't think there's any possible finding that could make us think "racism is okay." In my view, not being racist – in the sense that has moral significance for me – means that

... (read more)
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2
oh54321
This makes more sense. I still feel a bit  irked by the downvotes though - I would like people to be aware of the email, and feel much more strongly about this than about not wanting people to see some of pseudonym's takes about the apology.
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pseudonym
I appreciated your original comment and upvoted it. I'll just add something now in response to this pushback. I'm not suggesting that Nick should claim that all groups no matter what have identical results in IQ tests, or that there's zero genetic contribution to IQ. If you are apologizing for a statement that is easily read to mean you believe white people are superior to black people ("I like this comment and think it is true"), and then in your apology you say something like: "Well, are black people actually worth the same as white people? I leave that to experts to debate the question" Then it's very reasonably going to be interpreted as not a genuine apology for holding harmful views, and "primarily just trying to do damage control for using a racial slur, or preemptive PR work for some other reason, as opposed to apologizing for actually holding those views.", which is why I linked that quote.
Anon Rationalist30
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Even in the original email, Bostrom makes clear that differences in intelligence do not alter the moral value or human dignity of each person.

For him, as for many, the issues of intelligence and moral worth are distinct; he never claims that black people are worth less, you are ascribing your own notion that IQ=moral worth, and then blaming him for not responding to it.

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pseudonym
"easily read to mean"
Lukas_Gloor13
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Thanks for the reply. That makes sense! I feel like Bostrom said a bit more than you describe here to make it clear that he doesn’t hold the view that white people are superior. So, to me, while “I like this comment” seemed like an extremely unfortunate phrasing on his part, the context at least made clear that he liked how the comment is "bold and edgy" rather than liking something about alleged differences between white and black people. 

That said, you're right that it's important to make these things really clear in an apology and he could have said more on the topic. Other people have also had negative reactions to the apology (e.g., Habiba here), so maybe I'm in a minority. I read the apology and thought it wasn't bad. I agree it could've been better (e.g., he could have written something like the paragraphs I wrote on how we should be very clear that group averages don't have moral significance) . 

(I'm sometimes not sure whether it's good to make apologies really long. If I ever had to apologize for something pretty bad, I'd be tempted to write a very long statement – but that may come across as self-absorbed and overly defensive. It just seems hard to get this right and I feel like Bostrom's apology at least hit a few aspects of what I'd expect an acceptable apology to contain.)  

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David_Althaus17
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Other people have also had negative reactions to the apology (e.g., Habiba here), so maybe I'm in a minority.

My sense is that many people thought the apology was reasonable. Your comment and Ofer's comment, both of which defend the apology as reasonable, have both 65 Karma which makes them among the most upvoted comments in this whole discussion (both statements are made Jan 13, 11:23 CET). I also think Bostrom's apology is reasonable (needless to say, I share your and Ofer's negative reaction to the original email.)

I think it's much riskier, reputation-wise, to state that one had a positive reaction to the apology than to state that one had a negative one, so we will see more of the latter. I think votes are in this case a more accurate reflection of people's views. 

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pseudonym
Yeah, I basically strongly agree Habiba's post, thanks for linking it. This part especially: "So while it would be okay to say something wrong one time on the internet. It is also okay for me and other people to be upset, uncomfortable, angry, disgusted, or even scared that someone who looks at questions about the future of humanity and writes about morality does not and did not display a sensitivity to this context. It is pretty reasonable to be mistrustful when someone espouses views (whether callously or even in polite language) that were espoused in much the same way by people throughout history who used those views to justify terrible things. I would be uncomfortable and upset to be part of a community where discussing issues like race/intelligence was not carried out with the empathy and rigour that the subject requires or where people commonly held views on race/intelligence that I consider to be wrong and extremely harmful."  
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Jinx
britomart1
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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).

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SantaRKlaas
IQ distributions differ across races. IQ proxies a general factor of intelligence. Afaik intelligence researchers believe both sentences are correct. I care more about being correct than about being culturally compliant, and I expect Bostrom feels similarly. So I don't expect him to disavow claims that seem to be correct.
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britomart
Your blanket statement about what "intelligence researchers" believe is misleading and implies a level of consensus that does not exist in the field (see for example https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/01/23/intelligent-argument-race). I am aware of the empirical evidence purporting to show ethnic differences in intelligence; I simply think it is low-quality and unconvincing.
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SantaRKlaas
No one mentioned in the article you linked disputes either of these sentences: "(1) IQ distributions differ across races. (2) IQ proxies a general factor of intelligence." Their discussion addresses "Why is (1) the case."
TeddyW-1
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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. &nbs... (read more)

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Anon Rationalist-4
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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 ... (read more)

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[anonymous]-18
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