It's important to note that few people will share their negative experiences with the Community Health Team because the CHT blacklists people from funding, EAG attendance, job opportunities, etc.
Also, if they cause people to leave the community, you're unlikely to hear about it because they've left the community.
This leads to a large information asymmetry.
I know many people who's lives and impact have been deeply damaged by the CHT but they won't share their experiences because they are afraid of retaliation or have given up on the EA community because of them.
For what it's worth, calling for deplatforming people based on thinking they're racist based on what they wrote from when they were younger and uncharitable interpretations of a couple of tweets feels pretty "cancel-y" to me.
Hanania didn't call black people animals. I reached out to him and this is what he said:
"“These people” as in criminals and those who are apologists for crimes. A coalition of bad people who together destroy cities. Yes, I know how it looks. The Penny arrest made me emotional, and so it was an unthinking tweet in the moment."
He also says it's quoted in the Blocked and Reported podcast episode, but it's behind a paywall and I can't for the life of me get Substack to accept my card, so I can't doublecheck. Would appreciate if anybody figured out how to do that and could verify.
Also, when I first read the tweet it was clear from the context that he wasn't referring to black people.
I think generally though it's easy to misunderstand people, and if people respond to clarify, you should believe what they say they meant to say, not your interpretation of what they said.
Just for your information, as a non-binary person who was assigned female at birth (so definitely under-represented in EA), I would find it very upsetting if I knew you were trying to control which ideas and people I was exposed to.
I find speciesist attitudes morally offputting, but if you would keep events from me because some people there were speciesist, I'd consider you to be being a bad friend.
People are different. Some people consider what you're suggesting to be helpful. I do not. I just want you to be aware about the differences in preferences there, and not think that all "underrepresented groups" would feel uncomfortable going to events with speakers they deeply disagree with.
I think the other thing that makes people think he's racist is that he does talk about differences in outcomes between racial groups and talks about alternative theories to "it's just because certain racial groups are oppressed".
Some people think that considering that is racist itself. I doubt you're one of those people, but if you are, then you'll totally think he's racist.
I've actually read probably over 100 of his articles, and that's what's convinced me he's not racist.
How much of his original content have you actually read? You can just check if you want. His writing is out there.
I think most of people thinking he's racist have looked at one or two cherry-picked tweets and read articles written by other people about him and what he said, instead of looking at what he actually said.
It's important to note that few people will share their negative experiences with the Community Health Team because the CHT blacklists people from funding, EAG attendance, job opportunities, etc.
Also, if they cause people to leave the community, you're unlikely to hear about it because they've left the community.
This leads to a large information asymmetry.
I know many people who's lives and impact have been deeply damaged by the CHT but they won't share their experiences because they are afraid of retaliation or have given up on the EA community because of them.
For what it's worth, calling for deplatforming people based on thinking they're racist based on what they wrote from when they were younger and uncharitable interpretations of a couple of tweets feels pretty "cancel-y" to me.
Hanania didn't call black people animals. I reached out to him and this is what he said:
"“These people” as in criminals and those who are apologists for crimes. A coalition of bad people who together destroy cities. Yes, I know how it looks. The Penny arrest made me emotional, and so it was an unthinking tweet in the moment."
He also says it's quoted in the Blocked and Reported podcast episode, but it's behind a paywall and I can't for the life of me get Substack to accept my card, so I can't doublecheck. Would appreciate if anybody figured out how to do that and could verify.
Also, when I first read the tweet it was clear from the context that he wasn't referring to black people.
I think generally though it's easy to misunderstand people, and if people respond to clarify, you should believe what they say they meant to say, not your interpretation of what they said.
What were the clearly racist of bigoted things?
We're afraid of people writing hit pieces about us and then boycotting and shunning us because of who we associate with.
Do you not see how that's controlling what ideas and people they are exposed to?
They can't make the choice on their own. You're keeping information from them because you've decided what's good for them.
I think the more robustly good thing to do is find out what your friends' preferences are and follow their expressed preferences.
He explicitly said that he sent an emotional and unthinking tweet.
That seems much more likely than he's playing an elaborate game of secretly communicating hate.
Just for your information, as a non-binary person who was assigned female at birth (so definitely under-represented in EA), I would find it very upsetting if I knew you were trying to control which ideas and people I was exposed to.
I find speciesist attitudes morally offputting, but if you would keep events from me because some people there were speciesist, I'd consider you to be being a bad friend.
People are different. Some people consider what you're suggesting to be helpful. I do not. I just want you to be aware about the differences in preferences there, and not think that all "underrepresented groups" would feel uncomfortable going to events with speakers they deeply disagree with.
I think the other thing that makes people think he's racist is that he does talk about differences in outcomes between racial groups and talks about alternative theories to "it's just because certain racial groups are oppressed".
Some people think that considering that is racist itself. I doubt you're one of those people, but if you are, then you'll totally think he's racist.
I've actually read probably over 100 of his articles, and that's what's convinced me he's not racist.
How much of his original content have you actually read? You can just check if you want. His writing is out there.
I think most of people thinking he's racist have looked at one or two cherry-picked tweets and read articles written by other people about him and what he said, instead of looking at what he actually said.