“Given that, I think the article does a good job of showing that women EAs in the Bay Area were repeatedly made uncomfortable by men’s behavior towards them.”
Even this isn’t really established in an interesting way. If out of thousands of women in a group dozens feel this way, it is probably actually a really safe place, while if half of them feel that way there is an issue that probably should be addressed.
And I seriously don’t know which is going on (and sampling women who stay in the EA community about how they feel creates a survivorship bias, because they are the ones who aren’t offended enough to leave).
But the TIME article is weak evidence in either direction, because the reporter is simply not trying to establish base rates.
Given you aren’t commenting on the truth value of the claims, just thought I’d nitpick that I don’t think establishing base rates is required for updating (or perhaps more accurately, some stories are sufficiently bad that even 1 credible case in the EA movement may be seen as bad enough). For example, what do you think is the acceptable base rate of this allegation? Can you think of stories that “if true”, would be sufficiently bad that it would make you think EA wasn’t a safe space for women, even without interviewing thousands of women? How do you feel about reading a report about sexual abuse of young children by Catholic priests which were not taken seriously by the Catholic Church—do you also suggest that this is “weak evidence in either direction, because the reporter is simply not trying to establish base rates?”
So first, the story in time is stripped of context—it is impossible to judge from that story being told by a journalist how serious it is, because I know the journalist stripped out any information that would make it seem less bad.
Second, that one individual in a group of thousands did something is never, ever, ever enough to judge the whole group—though the official reaction to that individual of course might be. I think that you are referring to Owen not being banned from all community positions immediately after this was reported to the community team by the anonymous woman. If you judge that as a reason to say the whole movement yas a problem, and I see it as totally reasonable, we disagree.
But yes: That some priests sexually abuse children is irrelevant. There are tens of thousands. That a reporter claims that covering this up is a systematic issue is something that I will only believe if the reporter does the work to prove it. My extremely uninformed impression was that this had been proven in that case, but you correctly have pointed out to me that I should lower my confidence in the view that the catholic church pre 2010 or so had a real problem with sexual abuse.
Second, that one individual in a group of thousands did something is never, ever, ever enough to judge the whole group—though the official reaction to that individual of course might be.
Never, ever, ever? Are you saying you’d put a 0% chance that applying any kind of judgement on the group based on the actions of one individual is appropriate? This just seems clearly misguided.
In any case, I never made the claim that “Owen not being banned from all community positions immediately after this was reported to the community team by the anonymous woman” means that the EA movement as a whole has a problem, that’s a strawman. I just expressed skepticism around your view that base rates are a necessary condition for you to consider something good evidence, by asking you whether there was anything at all that was qualitatively bad enough such that even 1 case would make you think it would be reasonable for a woman to conclude that EA in the Bay area, or even EA more broadly, isn’t a safe space for them. but sounds like you think the answer is a firm and absolute no, which is pretty surprising to me.
I think we might be attaching different concepts to the same words here.
When you say that one incident could indicate there is a problem, are you including the way the surrounding community reacts in what you mean by the ‘incident’, or does the ‘incident’ only include the fact that one individual who was part of the community acted that way?
The pressing question for EA is not whether or not EA has a base rate of harassment that is worse than average. The question is “is there reasonable room for improvement?”. I think the answer is yes, and I think the time article provides helpful evidence of that. It’s not impossible that the answer is no and EA is already perfect on this issue, but from I’ve read it seems unlikely.
“Given that, I think the article does a good job of showing that women EAs in the Bay Area were repeatedly made uncomfortable by men’s behavior towards them.”
Even this isn’t really established in an interesting way. If out of thousands of women in a group dozens feel this way, it is probably actually a really safe place, while if half of them feel that way there is an issue that probably should be addressed.
And I seriously don’t know which is going on (and sampling women who stay in the EA community about how they feel creates a survivorship bias, because they are the ones who aren’t offended enough to leave).
But the TIME article is weak evidence in either direction, because the reporter is simply not trying to establish base rates.
Given you aren’t commenting on the truth value of the claims, just thought I’d nitpick that I don’t think establishing base rates is required for updating (or perhaps more accurately, some stories are sufficiently bad that even 1 credible case in the EA movement may be seen as bad enough). For example, what do you think is the acceptable base rate of this allegation? Can you think of stories that “if true”, would be sufficiently bad that it would make you think EA wasn’t a safe space for women, even without interviewing thousands of women? How do you feel about reading a report about sexual abuse of young children by Catholic priests which were not taken seriously by the Catholic Church—do you also suggest that this is “weak evidence in either direction, because the reporter is simply not trying to establish base rates?”
So first, the story in time is stripped of context—it is impossible to judge from that story being told by a journalist how serious it is, because I know the journalist stripped out any information that would make it seem less bad.
Second, that one individual in a group of thousands did something is never, ever, ever enough to judge the whole group—though the official reaction to that individual of course might be. I think that you are referring to Owen not being banned from all community positions immediately after this was reported to the community team by the anonymous woman. If you judge that as a reason to say the whole movement yas a problem, and I see it as totally reasonable, we disagree.
But yes: That some priests sexually abuse children is irrelevant. There are tens of thousands. That a reporter claims that covering this up is a systematic issue is something that I will only believe if the reporter does the work to prove it. My extremely uninformed impression was that this had been proven in that case, but you correctly have pointed out to me that I should lower my confidence in the view that the catholic church pre 2010 or so had a real problem with sexual abuse.
Thank you
Never, ever, ever? Are you saying you’d put a 0% chance that applying any kind of judgement on the group based on the actions of one individual is appropriate? This just seems clearly misguided.
In any case, I never made the claim that “Owen not being banned from all community positions immediately after this was reported to the community team by the anonymous woman” means that the EA movement as a whole has a problem, that’s a strawman. I just expressed skepticism around your view that base rates are a necessary condition for you to consider something good evidence, by asking you whether there was anything at all that was qualitatively bad enough such that even 1 case would make you think it would be reasonable for a woman to conclude that EA in the Bay area, or even EA more broadly, isn’t a safe space for them. but sounds like you think the answer is a firm and absolute no, which is pretty surprising to me.
I think we might be attaching different concepts to the same words here.
When you say that one incident could indicate there is a problem, are you including the way the surrounding community reacts in what you mean by the ‘incident’, or does the ‘incident’ only include the fact that one individual who was part of the community acted that way?
The pressing question for EA is not whether or not EA has a base rate of harassment that is worse than average. The question is “is there reasonable room for improvement?”. I think the answer is yes, and I think the time article provides helpful evidence of that. It’s not impossible that the answer is no and EA is already perfect on this issue, but from I’ve read it seems unlikely.