I was super hesitant about sharing this here, because indeed it is missing a lot of context.
Honestly, it is extremely demoralizing to be sincere and vulnerable in asking for help, and have that be called emotional manipulation.
Here’s a reflection Claude wrote about my original quick take:
“Does EA have a blind spot around personal hardship?
EA culture is pretty good at thinking about suffering at scale — but I sometimes wonder if it struggles to respond well when suffering shows up close and personal.
If EA communities can’t extend basic good faith to someone asking for help in a moment of need, is that a failure of the culture? We talk a lot about optimizing impact, but a reflexive suspicion toward personal appeals might mean we’re leaving real, immediate suffering unaddressed — and making people feel worse in the process.”
I was super hesitant about sharing this here, because indeed it is missing a lot of context.
Honestly, it is extremely demoralizing to be sincere and vulnerable in asking for help, and have that be called emotional manipulation.
Here’s a reflection Claude wrote about my original quick take:
“Does EA have a blind spot around personal hardship?
EA culture is pretty good at thinking about suffering at scale — but I sometimes wonder if it struggles to respond well when suffering shows up close and personal.
If EA communities can’t extend basic good faith to someone asking for help in a moment of need, is that a failure of the culture? We talk a lot about optimizing impact, but a reflexive suspicion toward personal appeals might mean we’re leaving real, immediate suffering unaddressed — and making people feel worse in the process.”
What do you think of Claude’s take there? (I thought it was unrepresentative of my own lived experience with various EA communities over the years.)
Your mileage may vary.