Yes, poor people are not a monolith! Some people from our background (especially the people who chose to stick around EA long enough to be on the forum) will prefer current EA norms and feel grateful for them. I don’t mean to dismiss your experiences at all. And like I said earlier, there are many different socioeconomic cultures that are underrepresented in EA, so I don’t know what direction we should shift our norms in overall. Maybe there is that much diversity even within the US. I was speaking about my personal experience as someone from this background and the experiences of all the people I know well enough to know their perspectives from this background. I’m sorry I gave the impression I was trying to speak for you. I also wasn’t accusing us at all of having lack of control, just having the right to prefer different norms if we want to. Thanks so much for sharing your perspective! I do wish you had done so more politely though.
I’m curious: Do you feel like your wider lower class culture was very different from mine, or is it more that your family held different views that were a minority? Also, where were you raised and what role did religion play? My experience comes from Sacramento, California and religion was rarely discussed. I hope you don’t mind me asking these questions; There are so few of us around that EA needs all the data on us it can get!
I really think we are speaking past one another. Back to brass tacks: 1. I do not see Owen’s behavior as being okay in any context. 2. I understand and know well the banter culture you are referring to but what he did is way outside the pale and classifying it as banter is muddying the waters and clouding how serious his behavior actually was. 3. I resent the presentation of taking a strong stance against harassment and verbal abuse as a detriment to socioeconomic diversity. 4. “So I don’t know what direction we should shift our norms in overall.” I reject the norm framing but it seems pretty obvious to me that there can be no place for harassment in EA and if you think my message was impolite and you wish I had been kinder it seems you have that preference too.
I agree that Owen’s behavior was not ok in any context. I agree he should be punished for it. I am only disagreeing with the extent of the punishment demanded in the comments on that post and similar comments regarding some other incidents in the Time article.
“If any of them decided to engage further and made clumsy comments while getting used to EA culture, I would want them to be treated with empathy. Much of the conversation around the Time article (especially the response to Owen Cotton-Barratt’s mistake) has given me the impression that they would not be.”
1. That does not give the impression of thinking his behavior was serious (you reference clumsy comments and refer to his behavior as a “mistake”) and when you combine it with referencing banter culture it comes across like you are saying he was just bantering which he clearly was not. 2. I haven’t expressed an opinion on punishment here. My core issue here is that I object to painting a strong stance on harassment as detrimental to socio-economic diversity and the implicature that carries with it.
I did find your comments on that post and believe we have very different perspectives on how serious the punishment should be. I thought the likelihood of someone familiar with lower class banter culture having such different opinions from me about the punishment was low, so I really appreciate you speaking up!
“It didn’t occur to me that someone familiar with lower-class banter culture would have such different opinions from me about the punishment, so I appreciate you speaking up!” 1. It’s not banter, it’s sexual harassment. We know banter, it’s playful and consensual. It’s not this. 2. Being poor made me vulnerable, I don’t want anyone to go through what I did, and to the extent I have jurisdiction, I’m staking my flag and dying on the hill that people who harass get kicked out. We disagree and I’m pretty crabby about your post but I appreciate your stated openness to engaging with me on this issue.
I’m actually more open than I appear, and feel bad about not engaging more with you about the details. I want to, but going through all that again like we did in the comments on Owen’s post would be too distracting from school for me right now.
Yes, poor people are not a monolith! Some people from our background (especially the people who chose to stick around EA long enough to be on the forum) will prefer current EA norms and feel grateful for them. I don’t mean to dismiss your experiences at all. And like I said earlier, there are many different socioeconomic cultures that are underrepresented in EA, so I don’t know what direction we should shift our norms in overall. Maybe there is that much diversity even within the US. I was speaking about my personal experience as someone from this background and the experiences of all the people I know well enough to know their perspectives from this background. I’m sorry I gave the impression I was trying to speak for you. I also wasn’t accusing us at all of having lack of control, just having the right to prefer different norms if we want to. Thanks so much for sharing your perspective! I do wish you had done so more politely though.
I’m curious: Do you feel like your wider lower class culture was very different from mine, or is it more that your family held different views that were a minority? Also, where were you raised and what role did religion play? My experience comes from Sacramento, California and religion was rarely discussed. I hope you don’t mind me asking these questions; There are so few of us around that EA needs all the data on us it can get!
I really think we are speaking past one another. Back to brass tacks:
1. I do not see Owen’s behavior as being okay in any context.
2. I understand and know well the banter culture you are referring to but what he did is way outside the pale and classifying it as banter is muddying the waters and clouding how serious his behavior actually was.
3. I resent the presentation of taking a strong stance against harassment and verbal abuse as a detriment to socioeconomic diversity.
4. “So I don’t know what direction we should shift our norms in overall.” I reject the norm framing but it seems pretty obvious to me that there can be no place for harassment in EA and if you think my message was impolite and you wish I had been kinder it seems you have that preference too.
I agree that Owen’s behavior was not ok in any context. I agree he should be punished for it. I am only disagreeing with the extent of the punishment demanded in the comments on that post and similar comments regarding some other incidents in the Time article.
“If any of them decided to engage further and made clumsy comments while getting used to EA culture, I would want them to be treated with empathy. Much of the conversation around the Time article (especially the response to Owen Cotton-Barratt’s mistake) has given me the impression that they would not be.”
1. That does not give the impression of thinking his behavior was serious (you reference clumsy comments and refer to his behavior as a “mistake”) and when you combine it with referencing banter culture it comes across like you are saying he was just bantering which he clearly was not.
2. I haven’t expressed an opinion on punishment here. My core issue here is that I object to painting a strong stance on harassment as detrimental to socio-economic diversity and the implicature that carries with it.
I’m sorry my comment gave the wrong impression!
I did find your comments on that post and believe we have very different perspectives on how serious the punishment should be. I thought the likelihood of someone familiar with lower class banter culture having such different opinions from me about the punishment was low, so I really appreciate you speaking up!
“It didn’t occur to me that someone familiar with lower-class banter culture would have such different opinions from me about the punishment, so I appreciate you speaking up!”
1. It’s not banter, it’s sexual harassment. We know banter, it’s playful and consensual. It’s not this.
2. Being poor made me vulnerable, I don’t want anyone to go through what I did, and to the extent I have jurisdiction, I’m staking my flag and dying on the hill that people who harass get kicked out.
We disagree and I’m pretty crabby about your post but I appreciate your stated openness to engaging with me on this issue.
I’m actually more open than I appear, and feel bad about not engaging more with you about the details. I want to, but going through all that again like we did in the comments on Owen’s post would be too distracting from school for me right now.
Please don’t feel bad. Good luck with school :)