You may be right that the benefits are worth the costs for some people, but I think if you have access to a group interested in doing social events with plausible deniability, that group is probably already a place where you should be able to be honest about your beliefs without fear of “cancellation.” Then it is preferable to practice (and expect) the moral courage / accountability / honesty of saying what you actually believe and defending it within that group. If you don’t have a group of people interested in doing social events with plausible deniability, you probably can’t do them and this point is mute. So I’m not sure I understand the use case—you have a friend group that is a little cancel-ish but still interested in expressing controversial beliefs? That sounds like something that is not a rationalist group (or maybe I am spoiled by the culture of Jenn’s meetups).
I think if you have access to a group interested in doing social events with plausible deniability, that group is probably already a place where you should be able to be honest about your beliefs without fear of “cancellation.”
You may not know exactly who belongs to that group before going to the event and seeing who shows up.
You may be right that the benefits are worth the costs for some people, but I think if you have access to a group interested in doing social events with plausible deniability, that group is probably already a place where you should be able to be honest about your beliefs without fear of “cancellation.” Then it is preferable to practice (and expect) the moral courage / accountability / honesty of saying what you actually believe and defending it within that group. If you don’t have a group of people interested in doing social events with plausible deniability, you probably can’t do them and this point is mute. So I’m not sure I understand the use case—you have a friend group that is a little cancel-ish but still interested in expressing controversial beliefs? That sounds like something that is not a rationalist group (or maybe I am spoiled by the culture of Jenn’s meetups).
You may not know exactly who belongs to that group before going to the event and seeing who shows up.