In this particular case, both the object level (why is our society the way it is) and the meta-level (what are the actual views in this piece that got severe backlash) are relevant to our modeling of the world and I think it’d be a loss to not have this piece.
I agree that the politics ban is a big sacrifice (regardless of whether the benefits outweigh it or not), and also that this particular post has a lot of value. But if you look at the set of all books for which (1) a largely positive reivew could plausibly been written by a super smart guy like lsusr, and (2) the backlash could plausibly be really bad, I think it literally contains a single element. It’s only TBC. There are a bunch of non-bookreview posts that I also wouldn’t want, but they’re very rare. It seems like we’re talking about a much smaller set of topics than what’s covered by the norm around politics.
I feel like if we wanted to find the optimal point in the value-risk space, there’s no way it’s “ban on all politics but no restriction on social justice”. There have got to be political areas with less risk and more payoff, like just all non-US politics or something.
I agree that the politics ban is a big sacrifice (regardless of whether the benefits outweigh it or not)
A global ban on political discussion by rationalists might be a big sacrifice, but it seems to me there are no major costs to asking people to take it elsewhere.
(I just edited “would be a big sacrifice” to “might be a big sacrifice”, because the same forces that cause a ban to seem like a good idea will still distort discussions even in the absence of a ban, and perhaps make them worse than useless because they encourage the false belief that a rational discussion is being had.)
I agree that the politics ban is a big sacrifice (regardless of whether the benefits outweigh it or not), and also that this particular post has a lot of value. But if you look at the set of all books for which (1) a largely positive reivew could plausibly been written by a super smart guy like lsusr, and (2) the backlash could plausibly be really bad, I think it literally contains a single element. It’s only TBC. There are a bunch of non-bookreview posts that I also wouldn’t want, but they’re very rare. It seems like we’re talking about a much smaller set of topics than what’s covered by the norm around politics.
I feel like if we wanted to find the optimal point in the value-risk space, there’s no way it’s “ban on all politics but no restriction on social justice”. There have got to be political areas with less risk and more payoff, like just all non-US politics or something.
A global ban on political discussion by rationalists might be a big sacrifice, but it seems to me there are no major costs to asking people to take it elsewhere.
(I just edited “would be a big sacrifice” to “might be a big sacrifice”, because the same forces that cause a ban to seem like a good idea will still distort discussions even in the absence of a ban, and perhaps make them worse than useless because they encourage the false belief that a rational discussion is being had.)