On the topic of politics and effective altruism, I was somewhat surprised1 to see the following pop up in my Facebook feed:
What began as two conflicting defenses of free speech soon hindered discussion of any kind, as the Effective Altruists and protesters battled with the volume to deafening proportions. Protesters used a megaphone to read prepared text to the audience, and numerous audience members shouted back at them to leave.
One protester even temporarily unplugged the adapter connecting Effective Altruism’s computer to the projector before fleeing out the side door of Cinecenta. The club was able to quickly start the video back up with a replacement adapter.
All the while, Singer’s TED Talk and Q&A continued, and the room grew cacophonous. Shouts of support for Singer’s free speech were met with chants of “eugenics is hate” and “disabled lives matter,” and neither side showed any signs of backing down.
[the] protest [was] on the grounds of Singer’s past defense of the right of parents to euthanize severely disabled infants.
...
Protesters argued that giving Singer a platform was implicitly supporting the murder of disabled people, and that his views supported eugenics.
...
Singer was in fact asked to address his views on euthanasia, but his answer was inaudible over the din of the auditorium.
Thoughts
Increasingly, I feel like our politics is being dominated by a meta-debate about who we are allowed to:
- no-platform,
- doxx,
- punch in the face for expressing an opinion or making an argument,
- openly and without fear of consequence call for the assassination of,
- take to court for even presenting an option about a policy alternative to the ideologically correct one,
- or otherwise suspend the usual rules of good epistemology over.
Whilst this latest event is part of a narrative about bad epistemology in contemporary politics2 that I have been interested in for a while, even I was shocked that things have gone this far; I should lose some Bayes points.
I would consider this to be something like a near miss. Making a simple extrapolation about the amount this type of activity and its reach in terms of topic, I would suggest that we can expect more of it - both in terms of similar incidents, and in terms of other effects or incidents that share causes and ideology with it.
Anyone who was as surprised as I was probably needs to update their beliefs a bit here: we are in the outrage/doxxing/no-platforming age whether we like it or not, and all that stuff is terrible for thinking clearly.
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1: So surprised, in fact, that I am still wondering whether this is a hoax EDIT: We have some confirmation in the comments that this legitimately happened
2: and it applies to both sides, though I am not claiming that I don't have my own personal biases and hobby horses
Facebook requires that you give your real name to post an opinion, be part of the group etc. That is certainly a serious limitation to open discussion, and this topic in particular exacerbates that problem.
Not everyone will necessarily want to comment on this issue under their real name.
Also, I presume this forum exists because someone decided that something other than Facebook is required. Are we questioning this logic in general? Or are we making a special case of this issue? Why?
But if you would be so kind as to post anything you see as particularly relevant, I would appreciate it.
+1 this. Hate FB. EA is the only reason I semi-regularly think about returning.