In September, I attended Manifest, a forecasting and prediction markets conference. This conference attracted a unique combination of speakers: Nate Silver, Robin Hanson, Destiny, Aella, to name a few. Other prominent guests included Richard Hanania, author of the recent “The Origins of Woke” and Jonathan Anomaly, an academic who writes on the ethics of eugenics, among other things. This conference, in Berkeley, also attracted a typically rationalist and effective altruism crowd.
Before the conference, there was a fair bit of contention around Richard Hanania’s attendance. A HuffPost article had just come out which revealed that under a different name, he wrote a number of hateful diatribes on race, gender, among other things. Since this is a prediction markets conference, a market was formed around whether he deserves to attend as a speaker. Austin Chen, the founder of Manifold (the forecasting app behind the conference), published a statement on his views on why he chose to invite Hanania; Hanania’s talk was withdrawn although he did attend the conference to promote his new book. A related post is on how many people protested by not coming.