Thread for discussing Bostrom's email and apology

With apologies, I would like to share some rather lengthy comments on the present controversy. My sense is that they likely express a fairly conventional reaction. However, I have not yet seen any commentary that entirely captures this perspective. Before I begin, I perhaps also ought to apologise for my decision to write anonymously. While none of my comments here are terribly exciting, I would like to think, I hope others can still empathise with my aversion to becoming a minor character in a controversy of this variety.

Q: Was the message in question needlessly offensive and deserving of an apology?

Yes, it certainly was. By describing the message as "needlessly offensive," what I mean to say is that, even if Prof. Bostrom was committed to making the same central point that is made in the message, there was simply no need for the point to be made in such an insensitive manner. To put forward an analogy, it would be needlessly offensive to make a point about free speech by placing a swastika on one’s shirt and wearing it around town. This would be a highly insensitive decision, even if the person wearing the swastika did not hold or intend to express any of the views associated with the symbol. Furthermore, it could also be regarded as a reckless decision, in that the cavalier use of the symbol may, at least in some small way, needlessly contribute to the degradation of the protective taboo around these views. It would therefore be entirely reasonable for others to feel discomforted and disrespected by this decision and regard it as atrocious. Self-reflection, an apology, and a serious commitment to act differently in the future would all be more than warranted. Prof. Bostrom was certainly correct to apologise for causing needless offense with his words. Indeed, in my view, he ought to have apologised for this offense more thoroughly, with a note that more clearly displayed an empathetic understanding of why the rediscovered message was likely to be so upsetting for many. However, as others have noted, apologising for causing needless offense is not the same as apologising for the views that one actually holds.

Q: Were the actual views expressed in the message beyond the pale?

I do not believe this is as clear. As far as I can understand the message, at least on a charitable reading, it expresses the following views:

A. It is praiseworthy to try to acclimate people to engaging with discomforting ideas, even when these ideas are presented in blunt and provocative ways.

B. However, the professional costs of trying to foster this kind of intellectual culture are too high. It is not wise to express discomforting ideas in provocative ways, since people are liable to misunderstand and assume that you believe something worse than you in truth do.

C. (To provide an example of a discomforting idea that the author believes to be true) Black people have lower average IQ scores than white people do. Furthermore, IQ scores serve as a valid measure of intelligence.

D. (To provide an illustration of the communication style and reaction that the author advises against) If you express the above view bluntly, then people will assume that you dislike black people or believe they ought to be treated poorly.

The first claim is, in my own view, wrong and crucially misguided. Although it is often important to discuss upsetting ideas, it is simply unproductive and unkind to rub upsetting ideas in others’ faces rather than taking care to accommodate their reactions and feelings. Even putting aside the implications for one's own reputation, opting for this approach typically does not accomplish much beyond causing hurt. Furthermore, one ought to be cognisant of the fact that provocative presentations of ideas are, in many relevant cases, rather more likely to be misunderstood in ways that support harmful behaviours. This often-greater potential for harm to others is an important additional consideration against presenting discomforting ideas in maximally provocative ways.  Fortunately, Prof. Bostrom’s later comments suggest that he, at least, no longer believes in the first claim to the full extent he once did.

Of course, the third view is the central one that has attracted censure. Some have criticised Prof. Bostrom for not apologising for holding it. From what I understand, however, this view was in fact the mainstream view among psychologists at the time and, if it is fair to judge from the relevant Wikipedia page, likely still is. The same year the e-mail was sent, an American Psychiatric Association taskforce released a high-profile report on the state of the science of intelligence, with the title “Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns.” The report claimed:

"African American IQ scores have long averaged about 15 points below those of Whites, with correspondingly lower scores on academic achievement tests. In recent years the achievement-test gap has narrowed appreciably. It is possible that the IQ-score differential is narrowing as well, but this has not been clearly established…. The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socioeconomic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential."

While it is certainly possible for mainstream academics in a field to be wrong, trusting in an apparent academic consensus should not be treated as beyond the pale or interpreted as a serious indictment of one's character. In my view, the fact that Prof. Bostrom has held this belief does not, in itself, warrant condemnation.

Q: Should Prof. Bostrom face significant professional repercussions for his message?

I do not personally believe so. Individuals are of course free to choose not to associate with Prof. Bostrom. That is each individual’s own choice. However, there is the additional question of whether this kind of past behaviour warrants professional sanctions, such as removing some of the person’s institutional affiliations or professional titles, electing not to invite the person to professional events to which their expertise is relevant, or refraining from citing the person’s work when it is relevant to one’s own. This would seem excessive to me.

If an individual callously makes a needlessly offensive statement twenty-five years prior, apologises at once, and does not to one’s knowledge exhibit any equivalent behaviour in the subsequent twenty-five years, I do not view this as sufficient grounds for professional sanctions. I am conscious, of course, that others may disagree about the appropriate policy for responding to such cases. Some commentators also hold that Prof. Bostrom ought to be sanctioned for his views, not just for being needlessly offensive. However, as explored above, and unless I am mistaken, none of the views expressed in the message appear to have fallen outside of the range of mainstream academic debate. Enforcing sanctions for holding views within this range would seem to violate the traditional norms of an academic community.

Q: Have public statements condemning the message been beneficial?

I do believe it was reasonable for groups to release statements condemning the message. The message was highly insensitive and disrespectful, was sent by a prominent figure who is often held as a role model for junior researchers in his field, and has recently been seen by many people, even if it was sent many years prior. Acknowledging and affirming the message's offensiveness was a signal of concern and respect for anyone who had been affected by seeing it. It is good for institutions that are influential within relevant professional communities to be able to say, "We care a great deal about having a culture where people take their colleagues’ comfort seriously and do not engage in needlessly offensive speech. We want to make sure that everyone understands that it truly is not acceptable to behave this way within our professional community."

However, I found the statement released by the Centre for Effective Altruism to be fairly flawed. It did not describe what Prof. Bostrom’s message said, but, I believe unintentionally, implied that the message contained or stemmed from a view that black people count less than white people. Prof. Bostrom did not express that view, and, to my knowledge, there is no reason to believe he holds it. It is a significant mistake to put out an official statement that wrongly suggests a colleague holds an abhorrent moral view of this kind. The Centre for Effective Altruism should strive to avoid this suggestion in any future communications.

I have also been disappointed by the content of the university’s statement and by a number of individuals’ statements on the matter. Many appear to be condemning Prof. Bostrom either for views he has never expressed or for empirical views that, although they are discomforting and although they were discussed with deep carelessness and insensitivity, did correspond at the time to the mainstream academic consensus. I believe that one also has a professional responsibility to be careful in one’s condemnations. It is possible to care about sensitivity and inclusivity without sacrificing intellectual carefulness, precision, and integrity.

Brief note on why EA should be careful to remain inclusive & welcoming to neurodiverse people:

As somebody with Aspergers, I'm getting worried that in this recent 'PR crisis', EA is sending some pretty strong signals of intolerance to those of us with various kinds of neurodiversity that can make it hard for us to be 'socially sensitive', to 'read the room', and to 'avoid giving offense'. (I'm not saying that any particular people involved in recent EA controversies are Aspy;  just that I've seen a general tendency for EAs to be a little Aspier than other people, which is why I like them and feel at home with them.)

There's an ongoing 'trait war' that's easy to confuse with the Culture War. It's not really about right versus left, or reactionary versus woke. It's more about psychological traits: 'shape rotators' versus 'wordcels', 'Aspies' versus 'normies', systematizers versus empathizers, high decouplers versus low decouplers. 

EA has traditionally been an oasis for Aspy systematizers with a high degree of rational compassion, decoupling skills, and quantitative reasoning. One downside of being Aspy is that we occasionally, or even often, say things that normies consider offensive, outrageous, unforgiveable, etc. 

If we impose standard woke cancel culture norms on everybody in EA, we will drive away everybody with the kinds of psychological traits that created EA, that helped it flourish, and that made it successful. Politically correct people love to Aspy-shame. They will seek out the worst things a neurodiverse person has ever said, and weaponize it to destroy their reputation, so that their psychological traits and values are allowed no voice in public discourse. (Systematizing and decoupling are existential threats to political correctness....)

I've seen this happen literally dozens of times in academia over the last decade. High emphathizers and low decouplers are taking over the universities from high systematizers and high decouplers. They will do the same to  EA, if we're not careful.  

I've written in much more depth about this in my 2017 essay 'The neurodiversity case for free speech' (paywalled here on Quillette, free pdf here). IMHO, it's more relevant than ever, in relation to some of EA's recent public relations issues.

Seeing the discussion play out here lately, and in parallel seeing the topic either not be brought up or be totally censored on LessWrong, has made the following more clear to me: 

A huge fraction of the EA community's reputational issues, DEI shortcomings, and internal strife stem from its proximity to/overlap with the rationalist community. 

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 so the community can improve in some of the respects above, and "rationalist-EAs" want to debate race and IQ (or think that the issue is so minor/"wokeness-run-amok-y" that it should be ignored or censored). This predictably leads to conflict.

(I am sure many will take issue with this, but I suspect it will ring true/help clarify things for some, and if this isn't the time/place to discuss it, I don't know when/where that would be)

[Edit: I elaborated on various aspects of my views in the comments, though one could potentially agree with this comment/not all the below etc.]

I liked CEA's statement

• Writing statements like this is really hard. It's the equivalent of writing one tweet on something that you know everyone is gonna rip to pieces. I think there are tradeoffs here that people on the forum don't seem to acknowledge. I am very confident (90%) that a page length discussion of this would have been worse in terms of outcomes.
• I don't think it was for us - I think it was for journalists etc. And I think it performed its job of EA not being dragged into all of this. Note how much better it was than either Anders' statement or Bostrom's - no one externally is discussing it, and in an adversarial environment that means it's  succeeded.
• I think it was an acceptable level of accuracy. It's very hard to write short things, but does EA roughly hold that all people are equal? Yes I think that's not a bad 4 word summary. I think a better summary is "the value of beings doesn't change based on their position in space or time and I reject the many heuristics humanity has used to narrow concern which have led to the suffering we see today - racism, sexism, speciesism, etc". I think that while more precise that phrase isn't that much more accurate and is worse in other ways - it's just hard to understand.
• It condemned the language Bostrom used without saying he was wrong to hold views. To me this is clearly more truth-seeking than practically any other organisation would have published. 
• I think we should judge CEA and by their track records, not one statement. I think they are a truth-seeking, effective organisation and if not, I don't think it's this statement that has changed that for me
• I think the statement suggests that CEA doesn't have a tolerance for language or flippancy like this, but doesn't suggest that they are gonna sever ties with Bostrom. That seems like the right call.
   

I think people can dislike it. I really want people to feel free - but currently I don't.

Conflict of interest: I like Shakeel and feel loyalty to him which probably distorts this.

• "There is a racial gap on IQ test scores and it's really disturbing. We're working really hard to fix it and we will fix it one day - but it's a tough complicated problem and no one's sure what angle to attack it from."
• "Black people score worse than white people on IQ tests."
• "Black people have lower IQs than white people."
• "Black people are dumber than white people."

The first statement would be viewed positively by most, the second would get a raised eyebrow and a "And what of it?", the third is on thin fucking ice, and the fourth is  utterly unspeakable.

2-4 aren't all that different in terms of fact-statements, except that IQ ≠ intelligence, so some accuracy is lost moving to the last. It's just that the first makes it clear which side the speaker is on, the second states an empiricism and the next two look like they're... attacking black people, I think?

I would consider the fourth a harmful gloss - but it doesn't state that there is a genetic component to IQ, that's only in the reader's eye. This makes sense in the context of Bostrom posing outrageous but Arguably Technically True things to inflame the reader's eye.

• "Poor people are dumber than rich people."

I think people would be mad at this, because they feel like poor people are being attacked and want to defend them. They would think, 'Oh, you're saying that rich people got there by being so smart and industrious, and if some single mom dies of a heart attack at 30 it's a skill issue.' But no one said that.

• "People who go to worse schools are dumber than those who go to better schools."

And this would be uncontested.

• "Vaccines cause an increased rate of heart cancer."

If someone says that, you'd probably assume they were pushing an antivax agenda and raise an eyebrow, even if they can produce a legitimate study showing that. (I don't think there is, I made up that example.) So I am sympathetic to being worried about agenda-pushing that is just saying selectively true statements.

Man, this shit is exhausting. Maybe CEA has the right idea here: they disavow the man's words without disavowing the man and then go back to their day.

Bostrom was essentially still a kid (age ~23) when he wrote the 1996 email. What effect does it have on kids' psychology to think that any dumb thing they've ever said online can and will be used against them in the court of public opinion for the rest of their lives? Given that Bostrom wasn't currently spreading racist views or trying to harm minorities, it's not as though it was important to stop him from doing ongoing harm. So the main justification for socially punishing him would be to create a chilling effect against people daring to spout off flippantly worded opinions going forward. There are some benefits to intimidating people away from saying dumb things, but there are also serious costs, which I think are probably underestimated by those expressing strong outrage.

Of course, there are also potentially huge costs to flippant and crass discussion of minorities. My point is that the stakes are high in both directions, and it's very non-obvious where the right balance to strike is. Personally I suspect the pendulum is quite a bit too far in the direction of trying to ruin people's lives for idiotic stuff they said as kids, but other smart people seem to disagree.

As some others have noted, probably the best approach we can take to the question of a genetic racial IQ gap is to voluntarily avoid mentioning the idea or at least to portray the question as relatively uninteresting (as Bostrom said in his apology), especially since the policy implications of such a gap wouldn't be that big anyway. However, trying to suppress inquiries by others into the topic seems to me like it may cause more harm than good, via the Streisand effect. If it looks like there's secret knowledge that the scientific community has informally conspired to suppress, the topic suddenly becomes way more interesting. There was also a genuine conspiracy (both in terms of meetings among scientists and tacit peer pressure) to suppress discussion of the lab-leak theory of COVID-19 in 2020, and that fact made the question much juicier.

I admire that Bostrom's apology didn't take the easy way out by lying to pretend he thinks there's no possibility of a genetic IQ gap. I see that as a positive sign about his intellectual honesty. (Actually, it's obvious that between any two groups of humans, there will be some difference in the distribution of genes and therefore some nonzero genetically caused difference in the average of almost any trait you wish to measure. The real question is whether those differences are big or negligible. And even if the differences are non-negligible, I suspect it's usually bad to highlight them anyway, such as due to stereotype threat and the possibility of encouraging violence toward and persecution of outgroups. In medical contexts, such as when people with African ancestry are genetically more at risk from certain diseases than other groups, highlighting these differences seems useful.)

An attempt to express the “this is really bad” position. 

These are not my views, but an attempt to describe others.

Imagine I am a person who occasionally experiences racism or who has friends or family for whom that is the case. I want a community I and my friends feel safe in. I want one that shares my values and acts predictably (dare I say, well-aligned). Not one that never challenges me, but one where lines aren’t crossed and if they are, I am safe. Perhaps where people will push back against awful behaviour so I don’t have to feel constantly on guard. 

Bostrom’s email was bad and his apology:

• Was focused on himself
• Decided to take a long detour into the very subjects that make me feel unsafe in the first place

And to add to that, rather than the community saying “yes that was bad” a top response is “I stand with Bostrom”. I understand that people might say “trust us, you know we are good and not racist” but maybe I don’t trust them. Or maybe my friends or family are asking me about if I know this Bostrom guy or if he’s part of my community. 

And maybe I am worried that Bostrom et al don’t have the interests of people of colour at heart when they think about the far future. Perhaps, like the first female astronaut, who was asked if she needed  100 of tampons for the week, I am concerned that the far future is not being built with anything like an understanding of the needs of me or people of colour.

Heck, perhaps Bostrom wouldn’t hire someone like me. His apology doesn’t inspire confidence. Whenever I meet someone who holds these views it’s only an amount of time before I see those views worked out in their actions. This might seem overblown, but it plays on my mind.

At that point, the endless focus on the object level might make me feel like this isn’t the community for me. I’m not trying to bully you into submission, but I’m signalling that if you don’t take a moment I might leave. Or people like me won’t join.

More than this these are just good values I want in a community I want to be part of. I want a community with empathy. And I want a community with a good reputation.

Imagine we’re both taking an uber and the driver takes a turn too fast. “Slow down” I shout. You say “it’s fine, it's fine”. I say “Look, can we tell the driver pull into a side road and stop for a bit”. The question isn’t whether they took the corner too fast, it’s about whether you support me when I don’t feel safe. And if you don’t, I’m gonna get out of the car.

This was written after conversations with a few friends. I’m trying to do a good job but it’s probably flawed, nor do I claim to be a good spokesperson here, I’m not. I think some people are seeing this as an intellectual discussion while others are trying to feel safe and comfortable. If they don't, those people might leave. While I might not mediate my tone in discourse for an adversary, I often do for my friends. 

A good friend sent me an article from Vice on this with the comment below "EA is falling apart laughing emoji" He's a great friend, but to be honest this comment pissed me off, and more than the FTX coverage, this round feels like a sort of particular hate attack on EA. 

Think what you want about Bostrom and his comment, digging through the threads of previous online engagements of someone to find some dirt to hopefully hurt them and their associated organizations and acquaintances is personally disgusting to me, and I really hope that we don't engage in similar sort of tactics in response, though I don't think it's a really worry because the general level of decency from EAs at least seems to be higher than the ever lowering bar  journalists set. 

(reposting from the 'does it matter' thread)

It is commonly theorized that having friends who hold a viewpoint should make one more charitable to that viewpoint. This has not been the case with HBD. I have a close friend of around decade who has gotten increasingly obsessed with HBD. In general they are a smart and friendly person. But the things they has started espousing have become really shocking. 

Example of their views: If Black people are not heavily under-represented in a cognitively demanding organization that is strong evidence the organization is racist against White and Asian individuals!

Obviously these points of view are completely at odds with any sort of fair and inclusive community or organization. They have also moved further and further rightwing. This resulted in a lot of personal problems when I came out as trans. They don't 'just' have some abstract objections, they were quite toxic to an old and supportive friend when she was having a hard time. They explicitly admit that a huge driving force for them moving rightward in general is belief in HBD. The logic for why is not hard to see. If you believe in HBD you can start to feel 'persecuted' by people on the left or center-left. It's easy to start sympathizing with the right and far right.

I've been in the rationalist community for over a decade and the EA community for a somewhat shorter period. I have seen tons of seemingly kind and reasonable friends become increasingly far-right after they got into HBD.  Im honestly not surprised FLI was considering funding an explicit far-right nazi-adjacent group. The sympathies run deep. Neo-reaction has been close to the EA and rationalist communities for a very large fraction of our history. 

It would be extremely hypocritical for me to hold people to views they no longer support. I endorsed HBD in 2015 and 2016. Like many rationalists I was introduced to HBD by reading Slatestarcodex. Promoting HBD in anyway, including privately exposing people to the ideas, is one of the biggest regrets of my life. It is a seriously harmful philosophy. Im very, very sorry for any negative impact my actions may have caused. For obvious reasons I have sympathy for people who have gotten into the racist pipeline. I honestly only got out because the right is so shitty to trans people and is pretty anti-vegan. Like many eggs I had a lot of trans friends. Independently I was quite convinced veganism was a positive lifestyle. HBD is a very harmful pseudo-science and it is totally unacceptable that people with power in Effective Altruism believe in it. 

I truly hope the EA movement can move toward a better future free from this toxicity.

I wrote a substack post, 'Text, Subtext, and Miscommunication', that touches on some relevant issues.

Here, I explain my views on the matter.  https://benthams.substack.com/p/hordes-of-vultures-descend-on-bostrom

Are there any other key questions surrounding this debacle that I'm missing? 

Ability for Public Figures to Repent?
- Seems important over a span of time for a functioning society
- Relevant that this happened once 25+ years ago and no pattern of behavior
- Nobody seems to be questioning whether  the initial email was wrong to send

Should Bostrom's email/apology reflect negatively on EA?
- Yes from a Bayesian mindset, but very slightly
- Depends in part on whether one should disassociate Bostrom's broader ideas on Longtermism / AI Alignment from his actions 26 years ago - seems reasonable 

Does EA's response reflect negatively on EA? 
- Depends on if you want EA to have a "strong view" towards these questions; if so, you should probably update negatively on EA regardless since there have been a variety of responses
- If you prefer EA to have a diversity of viewpoint (seems reasonable) then maybe positive update on EA

What else should have been included in Bostrom's apology? 
- More explicit language around group intelligence differences? (what if he doesn't feel certain on that / doesn't want to lean into an Info-Hazerdous-if-True topic?)
- More empathy in tone? Seems like a solid criticism - what specifically ought to have been included? (And are we being welcoming to the neuro-divergent?)

Ought someone to convince themselves against "Info-Hazerdous if True" beliefs? 
- Epistemic integrity (seems unhealthy)
- Relative benefits of 10-foot pole position (easier to not talk about it vs showing certainty?)

Ought someone to discuss "Info-Hazerdous if True" beliefs?
- But doesn't that give extremists free reign over ideas?
- Seems like empirically it works alright to just not feed the fire? (do conspiracy theories/extremism disagree?)

Does this forecast future bad actions from Bostrom? 
- Likely not - would look to his pattern over last 25 years
- Prediction markets seem to have faith in Bostrom

Bostrom’s apology letter references another apology he made immediately after his original use of the racial slur:

I completely repudiate this disgusting email from 26 years ago. It does not accurately represent my views, then or now. The invocation of a racial slur was repulsive. I immediately apologized for writing it at the time, within 24 hours; and I apologize again unreservedly today. I recoil when I read it and reject it utterly.

It’s non-trivial to find his original apology, so I’ve shared it here for anyone who is interested.

 

>---collateral damage to Extropianism as a whole

Yes, that's what I'm concerned about. Transhumanism is weird
enough anyway; perhaps we should not make it even stranger
by adopting an offensive jargon.

Now, I am saddened by the reception of my message by some of
the other people on this list. It's my fault. In order to
make my point I thought that I should pick an example that
really was offensive. Well, it seems I succeeded only too
well. Let me say again, just to make sure that there be no
misunderstandings: I am NOT a racist. And I do not think we
should discuss the topic further. My apologies to "Damaged
Justice", Howard Julien, Pat Hardy and anybody else whom I
may have misled by my original reply to David Musick.

Personally, I found the original apology (and, FWIW, Bostrom’s most recent one too) disappointing. While I appreciate that he acknowledges culpability ("it's my fault"), it seems like the things he’s most concerned about are potential harm to transhumanism and people thinking he’s a racist. It would have been a MUCH stronger apology in my opinion if he had straightforwardly said it’s wrong to use racial slurs and apologized for having done so.

To be clear, I don’t think bad ideas expressed decades ago warrant automatic cancellation. I’m not sure what, if any, repercussions Bostrom should face now. But since he did cite his original apology as exculpatory evidence, I thought I should share that content so people can draw their own conclusions.

I think this approach is probably appropriate here with two caveats:

First, there should be some sort of objective criterion in the future to potentially trigger this action, to prevent giving the impression that it was being used to inhibit discussion of a topic. Since the apparent intent is to avoid swamping the frontpage, that criterion might be a certain number of posts on the frontpage.

Second, there should be a limited period in which the moderators will approve regular-post status upon request if a poster certifies that they were actively working on a post at the time the policy was activated. People have clearly invested significant time and attention into their posts on this and similar matters with the expectation that their post will receive the standard amount of visibility. Significantly reducing the amount of engagement they will likely receive after they have made that investment seems unfair. Moreover, creating a rush to get your post out there -- because you don't know when new posts will be relegated to personal-blog status without warning -- incentivizes hot takes and rushed work, which is undesirable.

Is this thread pinned to the front-page? Hiding all the posts mentioning the drama while letting the one allowed thread drift away could be characterized by onlookers as an attempt to sweep a serious issue under the rug, and I would argue has a silencing effect on discussion. 

Also, is a new thread going to made if this one becomes too long? If there ends up being like, hundreds of comments in the only allowed discussion thread, I feel it would also damage discussion by clogging it all up into reply threads. 

Here’s an attempt at a meta-level diagnosis of the conversation. My goal is to explain how the EA Forum got filled with race-and-IQ conversations that nobody really wants to be having, with everyone feeling like the other side is at fault for this.

First, the two main characters. 

Alice from Group A is:

• High-contextualizing
• Tends to bring up diversity as a value in conversations
• Finds Bostrom’s apology highly inadequate
• Absolutely does not want there to be object-level discussions of group IQ differences on the EA forum 
  • Statements that look racist should be strongly challenged, especially since they seem very likely to alienate people from EA.

Bob from Group B is:

• High-decoupling
• Tends to bring up epistemics as a value in conversations.^[1] 
• Probably thinks Bostrom’s apology was at least fine, if not great (since they can’t find a sentence in it which, when read literally, expresses something they think is wrong)
• Thinks conversations on a topic can only be improved by additional true information on that topic
  • So statements that seem false should be strongly challenged.

I’m naturally more of a Group B, but as the discussion has evolved, I think I’ve moved toward understanding and agreeing with the concerns of Group A.^[2] Hopefully this allows me to be moderately objective here -- but I expect I’m still biased in the B direction, so I welcome those who are naturally more A to tear this to shreds.

With the groundwork laid, here’s my potted conversation between Alice from A and Bob from B.

Alice: Bostrom’s apology is inadequate. He should completely renounce the position in the old email. Saying there’s a racial IQ gap is completely unacceptable, and he should renounce this too.

Bob:  I understand criticizing Bostrom’s apology, but as far as I can tell he was correct about the existence of an IQ gap. Here, look at these sources I found. You can’t ask him to say something false.

Alice: I absolutely do not want to discuss the question of whether or not there is an IQ gap. Please don’t bring up this question, it will be extremely alienating to tons of people for no benefit.

Bob: Hold up, it seems to me like you made a factual claim about race and IQ before I did. I’m just continuing the conversation you started. Am I not allowed to point out your mistake?

Alice: If you go around discussing questions of race and IQ, people will assume that you’re a racist. It could be ok to discuss this question in narrow contexts in academia, but it’s not ok here and the discussion is going to make us all look bad.

Bob: But you said something false! Are you saying we have to lie for good PR? I don’t support that.

Alice: I’m saying I don’t want to be having this object-level conversation, can't we just agree to condemn racist ideas?

[debate continues, neither side is happy about it.]

1. ^{^}

   I don’t mean to imply by this framing that diversity and epistemics are inherently in opposition -- this is just an observation that each side mentions one more than the other. I expect both A and B care about both values.

2. ^{^}

   Remembering other forums that were practically split apart by discussions of group IQ differences was one big update for me toward “discussing this on the EA forum is really bad.” This makes me sympathize more with wishing the conversation could have been avoided at all costs, although I'm less sure what to do going forward.

Look, I really didn't want to write about this, but here we are.

I'm very upset with Nick Bostrom.

His original email was terrible, racist, and offensive.

His apology was absolutely idiotically executed.

Here I wrote a very personal post where explain why I feel this way.

Just based on the discussion I've seen so far, I don't think people are taking this issue seriously enough.   Reputational costs from stuff like this are real and they are large.  

I'm a relatively new here.  I was still willing to tell people about EA after the FTX debacle, despite it being pretty damaging to my credibility.  But this incident has changed that.  All it would take is one unfortunate google search for someone to  wonder whether I'm secretly racist.  Of course, I'll keep donating to givewell and give directly, but telling other people about the movement is completely off the table for the time being.  I even made this new anonymous account so that my name won't come up on this website.

I also think people are dramatically underestimating just how (1) morally terrible, and (2) scientificly unfounded Bostrom's statement and apology both were.  Geneticists know race is a social construct at this point, with no basis in actual genes.  Psychologists know IQ is a somewhat mysterious measure (no, scoring lower on an IQ test does not necessary mean a person is "more stupid").  It is affected by things like income shifts across generations and social position.  For Bostrom to even have that opinion as an educated 23-year-old was bad, but to not unequivocably condemn it today - despite the harm it can clearly cause - seems even worse.

I would personally prefer a separate option to allow personal blog posts but not drama-of-the-day posts - I like seeing personal blog posts, but want to avoid drama.

I wrote some thoughts on the discourse that emerged so far, with the upshot that I wish people are kinder and more charitable to each other.

It seems the key points here are thus:

• A significant chunk of EAs think that while the way Bostrom said things was very wrong, discussion is allowed on this topic
• Another significant chunk don't want to be called racists or associated with a community that is open to fraught discussions that may involve viewpoints they consider racist.

This is a hard circle to square, since for both groups these are key points (intellectual openness and psychological safe/lack of racism).

I think this is a solvable problem, but I don't know what the solution is. Does anyone have any thoughts?

It doesnt seem like the done thing to talk mainly about feelings on this forum but I think that here they are relevant.

I am very upset by this and very disappointed. By the original email, by the quality of the apology, and by the nature of the discussion here on the forum. 

Many people here in the comments are discussing what science can/cannot say with certainty about the IQ of different groups, and whether technically speaking the sentences in Bostrom's apology are factually accurate. I think this is missing the point.

Being super when rational is important in matters such as deciding how most effectively to allocate funding but I don't think that is the mindset we should be taking here. I think some people see all discussion as a mere iterative process for coming closer to the truth but human communication is a lot more than that - you don't 'prove' to someone that they shouldnt be offended by a something someone said. Attitudes are expressed by the things you choose to say (even if you never say a falsehood) and right now the community needs to be signalling that it cares about people of colour. 

Many have mentioned that we have a neurodiverse community. I really do sympathise with those who find this sort of approach/deciding when to take this sort of approach difficult. I honestly don't know what to suggest. 

I have friends who are highly effective, intelligent, and compassionate individuals. I hope to be able to slowly convince them to be EAs but I'd really struggle to tempt them into a community that deals with a matter like this so coldly. If they saw the discussion in this comment section they would walk away, and in their minds, they'd have a big red X over anything associated with EA.

I was tempted not to write this and to just have my personal feelings of identification and association with this community reduced slightly. I hope others who feel like me won't do that either.

We need to do better at being inclusive. Our goals are compassionate but I think we would do better if we signalled compassion day-to-day.

Some musings on apologies in general:

I feel like I’ve read quite a few comments which imply that, *because* Bostrom proactively brought up this email in order to apologise for it, we shouldn’t be criticising him or being so harsh on him.

Setting aside the questions of whether the apology was sufficient, or whether he really brought it up proactively or because he feared exposure anyway, or whether the apology did or did not “double down” on the original wrongdoing…

…I think it’s wrong to say that ‘if Bostrom brought this up purely out of remorse, and apologised perfectly, he should lose no points.’

I think some of the commenters have an implicit model of apologies which is like ‘doing a Bad Thing means you lose some points; apologising correctly for the Bad Thing means you get the points back’. This is not how apologies work, and nor should it be. If this was how apologies worked, then there would be no social disincentive for doing bad things, provided you learned how to make proper apologies.

My model of how apologies work is more like ‘doing a Bad Thing means you lose some points; apologising correctly means that you lose fewer points (but you still lose some). Apologising also paves the way towards you eventually regaining your lost points with your community (rather than them, for example, distancing themselves from you), because they can *trust* you not to do it again’.

Unfortunately, often people make apologies *because* people are upset with them for the Bad Thing and they want people to stop being upset with them. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult to introspect and produce a *sincere* apology (or, conversely, to decide *not* to apologise because you actually don’t think the thing was bad) - because you’re too focussed on the goal of ‘stop people from being mad at me’. And people can kind of sense that desperation, and you *seem* less sincere. So I guess my advice to an apologiser would be something like ‘set aside the goal of “making people less mad at you” or “regaining your lost points immediately” - they’ll be mad at you either way, and your points are lost. Instead, set yourself the goal of “convincing them to trust you going forward, so you can regain the points over time.”’

I strongly support this model of structuring conversations during emotionally intensive situations like these.  We still have to see how well it works, but my prior is that this would have been a big improvement during parts of the FTX crisis, and it's useful now.

During the FTX crisis, I published a couple of posts regarding SBF interviews, and I've now come to regret bringing that type of discussion to the forum. Most discussions weren't productive, and a significant number of people were left with emotional burnout from that period.

Back then, and now again, there has been a shared sentiment of tiredness and burnout around these discussions. We should be open to criticism, and there should be a place to have these discussions, but I don't think our current approach is working well.

GCRI Statement on Race and Intelligence | Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (gcrinstitute.org)

Seth Baum on behalf of GCRI writes a statement on the controversy.

Worth noting that in this statement Seth justifies the practice of digging through old emails in order to expose offensive statements people have made in the past. Based on this I assume a risk that Seth/GCRI might leak anything I say in an email, and if they have this mindset then I worry that other EA organizations might have it as well. I would prefer to deal with EA organizations which express a commitment against leaking private communications. 

I wrote a short post aiming to explain some reasons to uphold norms that are common in other communities, even when the instrumental value of those norms isn’t obvious.  

One of the goals of this post is to explain a subset of the reasons why I think some people believe Bostrom’s apology and some statements in the subsequent conversation have been inadequate or harmful.

As a two-sentence summary:

• How we handle norms affects how others perceive our goals and beliefs.
• Some norms are like ethical injunctions and protect us from making harmful mistakes.

Please also feel free to give us feedback on this thread and approach. This is the first time we’ve tried this in response to events that dominate Forum discussion. You can give feedback by commenting on the thread.

Seems good to me, especially as a "quick experiment".

I shared some related thoughts on Chris Leong's recent thread: Should the forum be structured such that the drama of the day doesn't occur on the front page?

This was posted in 2019 by a group of EAs from underrepresented groups. Wish it had been taken seriously. 

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nqgE6cR72kyyfwZNL/making-discussions-in-ea-groups-inclusive

So far his e-mail has gotten relatively little media attention, his English Wikipedia page was changed (not the German one though) and there was little social media outrage.

This seems like a pretty good outcome for him. The reasons I can think of why that happened.

1.  His strategy of preemptively publishing the e-mails worked.
2.  He has no social media presence which would be the natural place for people to pile up on him.
3.  He might simply have gotten lucky.

The forum ought to have a policy in place about whether object level discussion on the aetiology of group differences is permitted, in advance of that discussion happening. (Otherwise it will have to make one up on the fly.)

I think that EA orgs should not cut ties with Bostrom, but if he was found to be using this language again then we should do so for a period eg a year.

I think this has probably really harmed Bostrom so I am satisfied that others won't do this. That said, I'm curious to hear from those who think EA hasn't done enough here.

Sending that email was really bad. 

(content warning: discussion of racially motivated violence and coercion)

I wanted to share that I think it's not bad to think about the object level question of whether there are group differences in intelligence rooted in genetic differences. This is an empirical claim, and can be true or false.

My moral beliefs are pretty rooted in egalitarianism. I think as a matter of policy, but also as a matter of moral character, it is good and important to treat the experience of strangers as equally valuable, regardless of their class or race. I do not think more intelligent people are more worthy of moral consideration than less intelligent people. I think it can be complicated at the extremes, especially when considering digital people, animals, etc., but that this has little bearing on public policy when concerning existing humans.

I don't think genetic group differences in intelligence are likely to be that relevant given I have short AI timelines. If we assume longer timelines, I believe the most likely places they would be important in terms of policy would be in education and reproductive technology. Whether or not there are such differences between groups now, there could easily come to be large differences through the application of embryo selection techniques or other intelligence enhancing technologies. From an egalitarian moral framework, I suspect it would be important to subsidize this technology for disadvantaged groups or individuals so that they have the same options and opportunities as everyone else. Even if genes turn out to not be a major cause of inegalitarian outcomes today, they can definitely become a major cause in the future, if we don't exercise wisdom and thoughtfulness in how we wield these technologies. However, as I said, I don't expect this to be very significant in practice given short AI timelines.

Most importantly, from my perspective, it's important to be able to think about questions like this clearly, and so I want to encourage people to not feel constrained to avoid the question because of fear of social censure for merely thinking about them. For a reasonably well researched (not necessarily correct) discussion of the object level, see this post:

[link deleted at the author's request; see also AnonymousCommentator's note about the racial IQ gap]

I think it's important context to keep in view that some of the worst human behaviors have involved the enslavement and subjugation of whole groups of people, or attempts to murder entire groups—racial groups, national groups, cultural groups, religious groups. The eugenics movement in the United States and elsewhere attempted to significantly curtail the reproductive freedom of many people through extremely coercive means in the not-so-distant past.  Between 1907 and 1963, over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States, and minority groups were especially targeted. Presently in China, tens of thousands of Uighurs are being sterilized, and while we don't have a great deal of information about it, I would predict that there is a major element of government coercion in these sterilizations.

Coercive policies like this are extremely wrong, and plainly so. I oppose and condemn them. I am aware that the advocates of these policies sometimes used genetic group differences in abilities as justification for their coercion. This does not cause me to think that I should avoid the whole subject of genetic group differences in ability.  Making this subject taboo, and sanctioning anyone who speaks of it, seems like a sure way to prevent people from actually understanding the underlying problems disadvantaged groups or individuals face. This seems likely to inhibit rather than promote good policy-making. I think the best ways to resist reproductive and other forms of coercion go hand in hand with trying to understand the world, do good science, and have serious discussions about hard topics. I think strict taboos around discussing an extremely broad scientific subject matter hurt the ability of people to understand things, especially when the fear of public punishment is enough to prevent people from thinking about a topic entirely.

Another reason people cite for not talking about genetically mediated group differences, even if they exist, is that bringing people's attention to this kind of inequality could make the disadvantaged feel terrible. I take this cost seriously, and think this is a good reason to be really careful about how we discuss this issue (the exact opposite of Bostrom's approach in the Extropians email), and a good reason to include content warnings so anyone can easily avoid this topic if they find it upsetting.

But I don't think forbidding discussion of this topic across the board is the right society-level response.

Imagine a society where knowledge of historical slavery is suppressed, because people worry it would make the descendants of enslaved people sad. I think such a society would be unethical, especially if the information suppression causes society to be unable to recognize and respond to ongoing harms caused by slavery's legacy.

Still, assuming that we were in a world like that: In that kind of world, we can imagine that the information leaks out and a descendant of slaves finds out about slavery and its legacy, and is (of course) tremendously horrified and saddened to learn about all this.

If someone pointed at this to say, "Behold, this information caused harm, so we were right to suppress it," I would think they're making a serious moral mistake.

If the individual themselves didn't want to personally know about slavery, or about any of the graphic details, that's fully within their right. This should be comparatively easy to achieve in online discussion, where it's easier to use content warnings, tags, and web browser apps to control which topics you want to read about.

But society-wide suppression of the information, for the sake of protecting people's feelings even though those individuals didn't consent to being protected from the truth this way, is frankly disturbing and wrong. This is not the way to treat peers, colleagues, or friends. It isn't the way to treat people who you view as full human beings; beyond just being a terrible way to carry out scientific practice, it's infantilizing and paternalistic in the extreme.

EA Forum top-level link

LessWrong top-level link

My views on what EA should learn from this event is the following:

1. EA needs to articulate what moral views or moral values it will not accept in the pursuit of it's goals. I don't believe EA can consider every moral point valid due to the Paradox of Tolerance. Thus, moderators and administrators need to start working on what values or moral viewpoints it will not accept, and it will need to be willing to ban or cancel people who violate this policy.

2. EA has an apology problem. Titotal has a good post on it, but a lot of apologies tend to be bad. Linking the post,

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KB8XPfh7dJ9uJaaDs/does-ea-understand-how-to-apologize-for-things

And quoting a section:

Okay, let's go over the rules for an apology to be genuine and sincere. I'll take them from here.

1. Acknowledge the offense.
2. Explain what happened.
3. Express remorse.
4. Offer to make amends. Notably missing from this list is step 5: Go off on an unrelated tangent about eugenics.

Basically, EAs need to apologize way better than they are currently doing.

Finally, I thank CEA for disavowing his racist email fast, and while I think it isn't perfect, I believe a lot of the criticism of CEA is misguided IMO.

I haven’t waded into the deep end of comments elsewhere but just want to make a simple point: the way Bostrom’s apology starts is awful.

“I do think that provocative communication styles have a place—but not like this!”

This comment just plainly doesn’t make any sense! It’s saying that he believes in provocation as a style, but has a problem with…the provocative style in which he once expressed that view. And there’s no further clarification of the places where provocative communication styles are appropriate, and how his thinking has changed (even if it changed within 24 hours) on whether this particular example was appropriate or not.

Everything in the entire discussion seems downstream of this core point, which is completely botched in the apology. There are similar moments in the rest (like the “what about eugenics?” discussion, or decrying “sloganeering”) that could be dissected alone but this one is emblematic enough on its own.

I am open to the idea that Longtermism is hard to disentangle from eugenics. How about it "things that are unacceptable" statement. eg

• It is awful to force reproductive changes on people
• Eugenics has a history of awful outcomes
• While there is value in considering how humanity can be better we should be deeply skeptical of lines of thought that involve making choices for others
• While there is value in deciding who we can help the most, making judgements based on skin colour has always been a reductive and cruel exercise rather than an exercise in truth-seeking. We reject racism and the narrowing of our circles of concern under the guise of pragmatism.

I don't love seeming to agree to criticisms that Longtermism is racist/eugenicist but if it's a thing people believe then then perhaps an open letter etc is a good response.

I've wanted to write a steelman of the "intellectual honesty matters, especially now" position but the versions I have written cause anger rather than empathy which seems bad. That said, I still think it's worth doing. I think those who don't think that the condemnation of Bostrom is worse than what Bostrom did have a position worth understanding and empathising with. 

On the forum organization decision, two thoughts:

• Can’t you just make a subforum and move all of the posts there? Isn’t that what eventually happened with all the FTX discussion?
• Ooh, this sounds like the perfect time to write a personal blog post and link to it on the EA forum…