I came here to write something kind of sloppy, but this is a much more measured and clear thing than I could have written, and I agree with basically all of it (though I think I might have more support for point A than you do, depending on some nuance).  I'm also pretty disappointed with CEA's response and have some desire to go around semi-emotionally pointing something like, "this organization clearly does not have truth/integrity as its primary value, you cannot trust it". I'm pretty sad about this; I'm not personally an EA but have many friends in the community and have supported and defended the movement from the sidelines for a long time. While I intend to keep supporting my friends I feel much less inclined to support the organized movement, now. 

There's definitely no censorship of the topic on LessWrong.  Obviously I don't know for sure why discussion is sparse, but my guess is that people mostly (and, in my opinion, correctly) don't think it's a particularly interesting or fruitful topic to discuss on LessWrong, or that the degree to which it's an interesting subject is significantly outweighed by mindkilling effects.

Edit: with respect to the rest of the comment, I disagree that rationalists are especially interested in object-level discussion of the subjects, but probably are much more likely to disapprove of the idea that discussion of the subject should be verboten. 

I think the framing where Bostrom's apology is a subject which has to be deliberately ignored is mistaken.  Your prior for whether something sees active discussion on LessWrong is that it doesn't, because most things don't, unless there's a specific reason you'd expect it to be of interest to the users there.  I admit I haven't seen a compelling argument for there being a teachable moment here, except the obvious "don't do something like that in the first place", and perhaps "have a few people read over your apology with a critical eye before posting it" (assuming that didn't in fact happen).  I'm sure you could find a way to tie those in to the practice of rationality, but it's a bit of a stretch.

I very much agree with your analysis, except for the "IMO correctly". Firstly, because I hold the views of a "rationalist-EA", so it is to be expected following your argument. Secondly, because we should not hold emails/posts against people 25+ years later, unless they are continued and/or deeply relevant to their points today. Looking at his last publications, they do not seem that relevant.

However, I would like to point out that to me the benefits of EA also profit from the rationality influx. EA to me is "rationality applied to doing good". So the overlap is part of the deal.

Generalizing a lot,  it seems that "normie EAs" (IMO correctly) see glaring problems with Bostrom's statement and want this incident to serve as a teachable moment

1. As a "rationalist-EA", I would be curious if you could summarize what lessons you think should be drawn from this teachable moment (or link to such a summary that you endorse).
2. In particular, do you disagree with the current top comment on this post?
   1. (To me, their Q1 seems like it highlights what should be the key lesson. While their Q2 provides important context that mitigates how censorious we should be in our response.)

I would say it's less about rationalists vs non-rationalists and more that people who are inclined to social justice norms (who tend not to be rationalists, though one can be both or neither) think it's a big deal and people who aren't are at least less committal. 

Note that there is now at least one post on LW front page that is at least indirectly about the Bostrom stuff. I am not sure if it was there before and I missed it or what.

And others' comments have updated me a bit towards the forum vs. forum difference being less surprising. 

I still think there is something like the above going on, though, as shown by the kinds of views being expressed + who's expressing them just on EA Forum, and on social media. 

But I probably should have left LW out of my  "argument" since I'm less familiar with typical patterns/norms there. 

Many progressive institutions spend a great deal of time highlighting racial differences. I really wish they would not. Even worse, they go on to attribute these gaps to discrimination and nefariousness on the part of oppressor groups. If gaps are not due to discrimination, then it is immoral to place blame on a the designated oppressor group for discrimination. In other contexts, this is common sense. It is wrong to attribute Jewish success to coordinated conspiracies and exploitation because their success is largely attributable to higher average cognitive ability and intellectual culture. 

There are successful minority groups throughout the world who are resented because their higher socioeconomic status is attributed to exploitation. I think this is an unfortunate situation. If anything, attributing socioeconomic outcomes to exploitation leaves a group open to violence moreso than attributing socioeconomic gaps to average cognitive ability differences. 

Few people think it is moral to commit acts of violence against less intelligent people. Even fewer probably think it is acceptable to commit acts of violence against a group because they are a member of a groups with a ... (read more)

Thanks for posting this account!

It sounds like your friend ended up being attracted (or sucked in) to quite a bad memetic environment!

It seems really off to me to assign much practical relevance to questions of IQ differences between groups because these priors get screened off once we learn new information about individuals. For instance, if we learn that someone works at a "cognitively demanding organization," that evidence is more direct and more relevant than any prior from group averages.

(Same reasoning: if all we knew about someone is that they don't have a university degree, then we'd be forgiven to have priors that they're somewhat likely to be not extremely intelligent or conscientious. [But it still seems important to keep an open mind because priors are very crude – that's the whole point!] However, once we learn that they work at a cognitively-demanding organization, the prior from the uni degree no longer matters at all!)

Neo-reaction has been close to the EA and rationalist communities for a very large fraction of our history.

I think a lot of this happened before I became active in EA/rationality, but I remember feeling quite puzzled when I read about neoreaction and saw that some people active in that scene had ties to the rationalists in the Bay area. My impression was that this influence has gotten a lot weaker over time, but it sounds like your experience suggests that it's still a big issue. I find that very unfortunate.

I guess I'm not that surprised that FLI funded someone bad - many EA grants are quite light on checks and balances, but I don't think my lack of surprise is from the same direction as you. I would be surprised and upset if Max Tegmark thought that neonazis [had some things right] or [supporting them is an effective thing to do].

Wouldn't you?

Thanks for writing this!

I've seen some posts on this forum discussing HBD as an is/ought issue -- something like: HBD is an "is", racial inegalitarianism is an "ought", and you can't derive an ought from an is.

I used to find this argument really compelling, and I still think it's powerful and underrated. But recently I've become more skeptical of it.

I think the is/ought boundary is not actually that firm. For example, consider the statement: "Most communities would be better off if adulterers received severe social sanction."

• You could argue this is an "ought" claim. A person who says "adultery is deeply immoral" is essentially saying we should apply severe social sanction to adulturers.

• You could argue this is an "is" claim which is empirically testable. Define a welfare metric, identify some communities, randomly assign half to a "shame adulterers" condition, see how the welfare metric is affected.

In the same vein, even if you believe you're a "high decoupler", there's a good chance you don't decouple as much as you think. Advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry even though people claim ads don't affect them. Humans are vulnerable to biases like the affect heu... (read more)