8mo ago

In Case You Had Any Doubts About Manifest Being Full Of Racists

forum.effectivealtruism.org My experience at the controversial Manifest 2024 — EA Forum

My experience at the recently controversial conference/festival on prediction markets …

So despite the nitpicking they did of the Guardian Article, it seems blatantly clear now that Manifest 2024 was infested by racists. The post article doesn't even count Scott Alexander as "racist" (although they do at least note his HBD sympathies) and identify a count of full 8 racists. They mention a talk discussing the Holocaust as a Eugenics event (and added an edit apologizing for their simplistic framing). The post author is painfully careful and apologetic to distinguish what they personally experienced, what was "inaccurate" about the Guardian article, how they are using terminology, etc. Despite the author's caution, the comments are full of the classic SSC strategy of trying to reframe the issue (complaining the post uses the word controversial in the title, complaining about the usage of the term racist, complaining about the threat to their freeze peach and open discourse of ideas by banning racists, etc.).

23 comments

The post article doesn’t even count Scott Alexander as “racist”
Jesus fucking christ. "You're full of bad apples, even if we don't count the ones only half rotten."

comment:
I was at Manifest as a volunteer, and I also saw much of the same behaviour as you. If I had known scientific racism or eugenics were acceptable topics of conversation there, I wouldn’t have gone. I’m increasingly glad I decided not to organise a talk.
EA needs to recognise that even associating with scientific racists and eugenicists turns away many of the kinds of bright, kind, ambitious people the movement needs. I am exhausted at having to tell people I am an EA ‘but not one of those ones’. If the movement truly values diversity of views, we should value the people we’re turning away just as much.
my brother in the Acausal Robot God, I have some unfortunate news about what your fellow EAs have espoused for the past twenty years.
Austin from Manifest responds that leftist views would obviously much more damaging to EA than racist ones, because reasons.
- Austin from Manifest responds that leftist views would obviously much more damaging to EA than racist ones, because reasons.
  I can accept racism, but I draw the line at suggesting that self enrichment is bad.
  
  comment from Austin:
  I don't love that some guests we invited may turn away bright, ambitious, and especially kind folks like yourself; I write a bit more about this here. I think the opposite is true as well, though, where left-leaning views turn away some of the most awesome up-and-coming folks.
  "Sure it's not ideal that all the racists drove off all the leftists. But have you considered the alternative is alienating the most awesome up and coming racists??"

I am releasing this post under a pseudonym, because I really don’t know how much talking about this topic with my real name and face might hurt my future interactions with the rationalist community. It might turn out to have zero effect, but I dunno maybe the Manifest people and Lightcone would kind of dislike me or something.
For a community dedicated to free and open discourse (lol) it's a great sign the author is afraid to publish under their real name lest they face consequences
- being disliked by racists is the optimal outcome my dude it's actually good

The party featured almost every single person from the three events that fell under the category "vaguely racist" (the more cringy or overtly racist ones weren’t invited)
Only the racists who were smart enough to not say the thing out loud too loudly were invited. No digging was done on how racist they really were, nor who the univited cringy racists were (Moldbug is quite cringe so obv he wasn't invited ;) ).
"My experience at the controversial Manifest 2024, or OMG sneerclub was right!"
- Did you misread or are you making a joke (sorry the situation is so absurd its hard to tell)? Curtis Yarvin is Moldbug, and he was the one hosting the afterparty (he didn't attend the Manifest conference himself). So apparently there were racists too cringy even for Moldbug-hosted parties!
  
  This was absolutely 100% a joke.
  But, as jokes are never just jokes (See, I learned a thing from livejournal era Scott! ;) ), it was also a sort of metacommentary on how mask on racists are only allowed, while open racists were not (no matter how racist their opinions are or are not, a mask on racist could actually be more racist than the cringlord open racist). And lastly, it was also a commentary on how cringy Moldbugs ReadyPlayerRacist writing style is. See, layers, I'm very smart.

There's more shit gems in the comments, but I think my summary captures most of the major points. One more comment that stuck out:
Being a republican is equally as compatible with EA as being a Democrat. Lots of people on both sides have incompatible views. I honestly think you just haven't met enough Republicans!
Yes, this is actually true, and it is a bad thing and an indictment of EA.
Edit 1: There is another post clarifying that it wasn't mostly racists (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/34pz6ni3muwPnenLS/why-so-many-racists-at-manifest ) but 1) this is sneerclub, not careful count of the exact percentage of racists and racist talks to avoid hurting feelings club 2) if you sit down at a table with 3 Neo-Nazis, there are 4 Neo-Nazis sitting down. 3) "Full" is a subjective description, so yes its valid. two major racists would be more than my quota 4) see sidebar on debate
- this is sneerclub, not careful count of the exact percentage of racists and racist talks to avoid hurting feelings club
  Also the only acceptable number percentage of racists in an organisation is 0%.
- like, one racist motherfucker is already one too many… how is that not obvious to the enlightened ~~reactionaries~~rationalists is beyond me.
  
  If it was one racist dude at a conference I could accept it was a horrible oversight on the conference organizers part if they immediately apologized and assured it wouldn't happen again. But 8 racist dudes (or 12 if you count the more mask-on racists) is too many to be accidental or an oversight.
  how is that not obvious
  Well, probably some of them are deliberately racist HBD advocates, but are mask on enough to play dumb and hand wring and complain about free speech. Some of them have HBD sympathies but aren't quite outright advocates, so they don't condemn the inclusion of racists because of their own sympathies. Some of them are against HBD, but know being too direct and forceful and not framing everything in 8 layers of charity and good-faith assumptions isn't acceptable on the Lesswrong or EA forums so they don't just come out and say what they mean. And some of them actually buy all the rhetoric about charitably and free speech and act as useful idiots or a buffer to the others.
  
  there must be a reason

after party at Curtis Yarvin's house
One sentence horror story.
In fact, didn't they make this movie, "Get Out" right?
- I'd bet five dollars that he brought them snakes out for everyone to pet and it was super awkward for a bit, but maybe I'm just unfairly prejudiced against snake guys.
  
  Yarvin's reptile enthusiasm may be the first endearing thing I've heard about him, ever.

23 comments