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July 2020  
  
|  |  "Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."  
  
 Einstein  
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There has been a lot of talk about privilege lately. Although the concept is
overused, there is something to it, and in particular to the idea that
privilege makes you blind  that you can't see things that are visible to
someone whose life is very different from yours.  
  
But one of the most pervasive examples of this kind of blindness is one that I
haven't seen mentioned explicitly. I'm going to call it _orthodox privilege_ :
The more conventional-minded someone is, the more it seems to them that it's
safe for everyone to express their opinions.  
  
It's safe for _them_ to express their opinions, because the source of their
opinions is whatever it's currently acceptable to believe. So it seems to them
that it must be safe for everyone. They literally can't imagine a true
statement that would get you in trouble.  
  
And yet at every point in history, there _were_ true things that would get you
in trouble to say. Is ours the first where this isn't so? What an amazing
coincidence that would be.  
  
Surely it should at least be the default assumption that our time is not
unique, and that there are true things you can't say now, just as there have
always been. You would think. But even in the face of such overwhelming
historical evidence, most people will go with their gut on this one.  
  
In the most extreme cases, people suffering from orthodox privilege will not
only deny that there's anything true that you can't say, but will accuse you
of heresy merely for saying there is. Though if there's more than one heresy
current in your time, these accusations will be weirdly non-deterministic: you
must either be an xist or a yist.  
  
Frustrating as it is to deal with these people, it's important to realize that
they're in earnest. They're not pretending they think it's impossible for an
idea to be both unorthodox and true. The world really looks that way to them.  
  
Indeed, this is a uniquely tenacious form of privilege. People can overcome
the blindness induced by most forms of privilege by learning more about
whatever they're not. But they can't overcome orthodox privilege just by
learning more. They'd have to become more independent-minded. If that happens
at all, it doesn't happen on the time scale of one conversation.  
  
It may be possible to convince some people that orthodox privilege must exist
even though they can't sense it, just as one can with, say, dark matter. There
may be some who could be convinced, for example, that it's very unlikely that
this is the first point in history at which there's nothing true you can't
say, even if they can't imagine specific examples.  
  
But in general I don't think it will work to say "check your privilege" about
this type of privilege, because those in its demographic don't realize they're
in it. It doesn't seem to conventional-minded people that they're
conventional-minded. It just seems to them that they're right. Indeed, they
tend to be particularly sure of it.  
  
Perhaps the solution is to appeal to politeness. If someone says they can hear
a high-pitched noise that you can't, it's only polite to take them at their
word, instead of demanding evidence that's impossible to produce, or simply
denying that they hear anything. Imagine how rude that would seem. Similarly,
if someone says they can think of things that are true but that cannot be
said, it's only polite to take them at their word, even if you can't think of
any yourself.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Thanks** to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Patrick Collison, Antonio Garcia-
Martinez, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Michael Nielsen, Geoff Ralston,
Max Roser, and Harj Taggar for reading drafts of this.  
  
  
  
  

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