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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28781 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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succumbing to feminism

To save you all the read, there is exactly one example of support this claim: Open Philanthropy publicly expressing concern about sexual harassment after a bad PR incident.

This is both false and uncharitable. The linked article references:

  1. The widespread admonishment of Nick Bostrom among EAs after his comment on factual group differences was leaked

  2. TIME article from disillusioned women in EA making questionable claims of sexual assault (to which the CEO of Open Phil replied, not the organization itself, as you suggest)

  3. Open Phil making donations towards criminal justice causes without any evidential basis for their effectiveness

  4. A highly upvoted post on the EA forum titled “I’m a 22-year-old woman involved in Effective Altruism. I’m sad, disappointed, and scared.” This post then goes on to critique EA for placing too much emphasis on rationality and not enough on emotion.

  5. Highlights two cause areas (global dysgenic trends and the power laws of crime) that are ignored by EA as taboo.

There are more instances outside the article’s scope that I could list, but figured that captured the main body of issues, and further examples would just be further evidence of these specific trends.

2. TIME article from disillusioned women in EA making questionable claims of sexual assault (to which the CEO of Open Phil replied, not the organization itself, as you suggest)

I didn't really see much of a difference, but I guess I can see how some people could.

1. The widespread admonishment of Nick Bostrom among EAs after his comment on factual group differences was leaked

5. Highlights two cause areas (global dysgenic trends and the power laws of crime) that are ignored by EA as taboo.

A social taboo against talking about HBD is not feminization. It was the de facto state of society well before the rise of modern feminism and woke culture. Take a random sample of men at the gym or in an MMO and start talking about how Black people are genetically inferior and let me know how it goes. HBD is not something all men secretly believe and want to talk about (if not for those pesky women!).

Though while we're on the topic, imo the general state of HBD has been the same since at least 2013 (when I started reading about it) -- basically: "Some of EAs believe in HBD and some EAs are uncomfortable with talking about it, and some EAs support strong social norms against talking about it", which should already seem strikingly different from how its talked about in the normal population.

3. Open Phil making donations towards criminal justice causes without any evidential basis for their effectiveness

Open Philanthropy's funding for criminal justice reform has been significant since at least 2016, went down in 2020 (when George Floyd died), and then separated from OpenPhil in 2021 because they weren't as effective as global health.

As we wrote in 2019, we think the top global aid charities recommended by GiveWell (which we used to be part of and remain closely affiliated with) present an opportunity to give away large amounts of money at higher cost-effectiveness than we can achieve in many programs, including CJR, that seek to benefit citizens of wealthy countries. Accordingly we’re shifting the focus of future grantmaking from our Global Health and Wellbeing portfolio (which CJR has been part of) further towards the types of opportunities outlined in that post — specifically, efforts to improve and save the lives of people internationally (including things like distributing insecticide-treated bednets to prevent the spread of malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa, and fighting air pollution in South Asia).

-- OpenPhil

Those don't seem like the actions of an ideologically compromised organization.

4. A highly upvoted post on the EA forum titled “I’m a 22-year-old woman involved in Effective Altruism. I’m sad, disappointed, and scared.” This post then goes on to critique EA for placing too much emphasis on rationality and not enough on emotion.

I'll admit I missed this (my mistake for posting while at the gym). While I don't think "highly upvoted post on a forum" is great evidence (or I'd prove that EA is okay with Bostrom), it should certainly qualify to be included in a "summary of evidence".

To be fair, not all of that is specifically feminism.

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