I think there is a lot of irrational paranoia going on with pushes towards secrecy
I think the paranoia is basically entirely rational. Several people have listed a variety of threats ranging from (at one extreme) death threats, and much more commonly, mild social disapproval that just makes it harder to accomplish things.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits to transparency. But I think the threats are generally well understood, and if you want (yourself, or others) to get the benefits of transparency you to need to actually do a lot of social infrastructure work to alleviate those costs.
This is an important and worthwhile project, but even within the rationality community, “mild social disapproval that is demoralizing and makes it harder to accomplish things” is still a problem that needs to be actively addressed in order for transparency benefits to scale.
I think the paranoia is basically entirely rational. Several people have listed a variety of threats ranging from (at one extreme) death threats, and much more commonly, mild social disapproval that just makes it harder to accomplish things.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t benefits to transparency. But I think the threats are generally well understood, and if you want (yourself, or others) to get the benefits of transparency you to need to actually do a lot of social infrastructure work to alleviate those costs.
This is an important and worthwhile project, but even within the rationality community, “mild social disapproval that is demoralizing and makes it harder to accomplish things” is still a problem that needs to be actively addressed in order for transparency benefits to scale.