EAs Shouldn’t Talk About (Most) Politics

By Daniel Birnbaum @ 2024-06-23T17:19 (+2)

This is a linkpost to https://irrationalitycommunity.substack.com/p/eas-shouldnt-talk-about-politics

This is a recent article that I posted to my Substack. Thought it would be relevant here as well! Please let me know if you have comments, thoughts, or critiques. 

Thanks a lot! 


Mjreard @ 2024-06-24T13:35 (+2)

I'm surprised at the three disagree votes. Most of this seemed almost trivially true to me:

Seems like good advice/a solid foundation for thinking about this.

A minor personal concern I have is foreclosing a maybe-harder-to-achieve, but more valuable equilibrium: one where EAs are perceived as quite politically diverse and savvy in both sides of popular politics. 

Crucially, this vision depends on EAs engaging with political issues in non-EA fora and not trying to debate which political views are EA or aren't "EA" (or tolerated "within EA"). The former is likely to get EA ideas taken more seriously by a wider range of people à la Scott Alexander and Ezra Klein; the latter is likely to push people who were already engaged with EA ideas further towards their personal politics. 

nathan98000 @ 2024-06-30T17:50 (+1)

It might help to provide a short summary of main points discussed in your post.