The question isn’t whether Scott Alexander is right [or virtuous]. I happen to disagree with plenty of things he is saying. That’s all beside the point. The point is that if you have the ideal to support and manage a community dedicated to honest intellectual inquiry then pushing out reasonable, polite, serious thinkers and writers is bad. Especially ones that agree with 90% of your ideology.
What is the endgame here? You think you will be able to convince world governments of a pauze if you kick out the majority of rationalists for not being pure doomer enough?
I think upholding a standard of virtue is a good thing. If Scott is behaving significantly unvirtuously, then it’s reasonable to stop giving him free support (and if not, then it’s probably unvirtuous for Habryka to stop providing support in retaliation). At least for me, the purity of doomerism is not at issue here either way, nor is the extent to which I agree with their object-level claims.
Basically, I think the specific details matter, and that this can’t simply be decided on general reputations.
The question isn’t whether Scott Alexander is right [or virtuous]. I happen to disagree with plenty of things he is saying. That’s all beside the point. The point is that if you have the ideal to support and manage a community dedicated to honest intellectual inquiry then pushing out reasonable, polite, serious thinkers and writers is bad. Especially ones that agree with 90% of your ideology.
What is the endgame here? You think you will be able to convince world governments of a pauze if you kick out the majority of rationalists for not being pure doomer enough?
I think upholding a standard of virtue is a good thing. If Scott is behaving significantly unvirtuously, then it’s reasonable to stop giving him free support (and if not, then it’s probably unvirtuous for Habryka to stop providing support in retaliation). At least for me, the purity of doomerism is not at issue here either way, nor is the extent to which I agree with their object-level claims.
Basically, I think the specific details matter, and that this can’t simply be decided on general reputations.