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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   26315 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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I think the typical EA isn't that far off of the typical Western liberal/progressive tradition in terms of their views on human rights?

I'm sure someone somewhere has done polling on this.

I do not believe that Effective Altruists would oppose vaccine mandates categorically under grounds of bodily autonomy, for instance.

Ah well, even my own libertarian instincts allow exceptions for bodily autonomy violations under crisis conditions. No, Covid-19 didn't meet that threshold, but plenty of historic plagues would if we had a modern outbreak. The optimal level of coercion is not zero.

I understand those as fair arguments, but they are the same fair arguments Khrushchev made for Stalin and that Marx made for Guesde.

I very much do not think those are very similar things in kind or scale. To my knowledge, no one in EA leadership was encouraging or validating Ziz or SBF with awareness of their actual behavior/intent and denounced it all upon discovery. Any kind of interesting new ideological movement that grows is at risk of attracting crazies and grifters; what matters is how that's handled and I think at worst EA was fooled by SBF like many others.

Of course. And I denounce them all as capable of the same horrors.

I suppose one can commit to a very, very strong stance on individualism. Are you an anarcho-capitalist?

The optimal level of coercion is not zero.

Sure, but principles that don't demand you sacrifice anything for them can hardly be deemed limiting principles. I'm sure you can do the work of designing those properly, but I don't really see that work being done and that doesn't bode well.

I'll commend Scott (or at least his past self) for doing some of that work. But I don't think it was anywhere near close enough.

no one in EA leadership was encouraging or validating Ziz or SBF with awareness of their actual behavior/intent and denounced it all upon discovery

Marx specifically disavowed Guesde and called himself "not a marxist". That's my point. Dr Frankenstein isn't absolved of the responsibility of building his Golem by casting it out.

Are you an anarcho-capitalist?

No, I don't see anarchy as a realistic proposition. I guess I'm a paleo-liberal at this point or something to that effect.

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