SneerClub

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.

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

after party at Curtis Yarvin's house

One sentence horror story.

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

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

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!"

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

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."