this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024

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In Case You Had Any Doubts About Manifest Being Full Of Racists (forum.effectivealtruism.org)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.).

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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??"

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

also here for "well the opposite of left wing views is racism"

thanks for saying it aloud my friend

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

where left-leaning views turn away some of the most awesome up-and-coming folks.

What left-leaning views? Like most of the times people are driven off by the strawmen of left-leaning views. Look at this place for example, nobody has shared guillotine building instructions for days! I half joke here, but it was quite odd how often during my /ssc period I saw people go 'the left doesn't think/talk about X, or they have not considered problem Y', while seeing leftwing politicians I knew talk about those subjects at the same time. For all the claims about the right being better at passing political turing tests, they actually failed in real time. And considering some things we read about this event the left-leaning ideas are more like 'don't act like a transphobe'.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

Totally Not A Cult.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

being disliked by racists is the optimal outcome my dude it's actually good

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

after party at Curtis Yarvin's house

One sentence horror story.

In fact, didn't they make this movie, "Get Out" right?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

Yarvin's reptile enthusiasm may be the first endearing thing I've heard about him, ever.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

like, one racist motherfucker is already one too many… how is that not obvious to the enlightened ~~reactionaries~~rationalists is beyond me.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

there must be a reason

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

a ... rationale, one could say?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

the methods of rationaleity

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

I was actually surprised that so many EAs in the comments came straight out and said the racism was unacceptable to them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

It turns out there is a level of mask-off that makes EAs react with condemnation! It's somewhere past the point where the racist is comparing pronouns to genocide, but it exists!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

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%.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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!"

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And wow, some people really do idolize this Yarvin dude.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

was one of the very first things I noticed when I ran across ~~cozy twitter~~ TPOT

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

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."