This comment was reported as needlessly unkind and assuming bad faith, which goes against forum norms, and on a second read I agree.
Accusing someone of āshitting onā the community, producing āanti-EA graffitiā, and being āunconscionable and monstrously ill-manneredā is a lot, especially based on a username that might have been intended as sarcastic rather than offensive.
Especially in particularly sensitive threads, please aim for a much higher standard before accusing someone of bad faith (including in this other comment).
Iām not questioning this decision on a whole regarding Ivyās comment, and accept that this is a sensitive thread so stricter norms will apply, but I think the original userās nameāāEugenics-Adjacentā, should at least raise some eyebrows.
I find it unlikely that it would be a coincidence that they happened to choose a name which plays on the āIām not an EA, Iām EA-adjacentā trope, and the āEugenicsā seems to relate to the Bostrom letter. Taken together, āEugenics-Adjacentā seems easily interpretable as a shot at the entire EA movement for being exactly this.
The OP also posted the first comment on this thread iirc, and set the tone off by saying:
...stories like this are lost on the devoted EA crowd here. Weāre likely to see another round of rationalizing, distancing, downvoting, and flooding the forum with posts to drown out the stories of power being abused
Which includes a direct accusation the EAs will āflood the forumā with posts after controversial issues like this intentionally in order to bury this issue.
Tl;dr: Not commenting on the whole of Ivyās comment being unkind/āassuming bad faith, but I think one can also be sceptical of the original posterās motives
I agree with @Lorenzo Buonanno that people in EA culture should think I addressed it pretty poorly. I think that myself now, and knew that it was far from ideal at the time.
My explanation here (not excuse) is that I donāt always have the energy to call things out in the best way. In those cases itās often best to stay quiet but not always. In this case I honestly did not expect anyone would do the calling out instead? Yet I messed up egregiously. I just find it so incredibly draining to face the fact that people disrespect EA that much and that casually. It really breaks me tbh thinking itās that far gone, unjustly Iād say, so I fight against that reality. Sometimes I do think āit is so pointless, we will never stem the flow of incorrect misleading criticismā even if I donāt really think that, I feel that. So anger is what helped me get over that feeling to write a clapback I thought was worth trying.
I wish I could trust that others would also call out bad behavior and make it clear that EAs deserve respect as much as anyone. But I think what I expect more from EAs is ignoring disrespect, explaining it, steelmanning it, or politely requesting for better (which like, we are talking about a proven-rude person here so they can just brush that right off their shoulders?).
I am very sorry for writing it as harshly worded as I did though. This was a particularly egregious fuckup of mine and I want to do better. FWIW I considered deleting the comment yesterday but kinda thought that would be epistemically dishonest or something, as I didnāt want to retract the whole thing, but again I didnt have the energy to fix it. Now I will try to fix it with liberal strikethroughs
One of the comments Ivy was responding to there began āI am encouraging you to try to exercise your empathetic muscles and understand...ā
And the comment thread we are in by someone who named this burner account of theirs āEugenics-Adjacentā began āSadly I fear stories like this are lost on the devoted EA crowd here...ā
I agree that posts on the EA forum should be kind and assume good faith.
I want to push back on your linking the other comment though. I said FYI that their comment was reading to me a certain way.ā¦ isnāt that forum norms?
To be clear, I would not have commented on the other comment by itself. Still, I do think thereās a general pattern on the forum where some threads by default tend to spiral out by commenters gradually modeling each other as more and more adversarial, unless we make a significant active effort in assuming good faith and being kind[1], and I think that thread might have become an example of that.
I agree that thereās an important difference between calling someone disingenuous and mentioning that a comment reads to you as disingenuous, but I still think that discussing things on the object level (like you mostly do in the rest of the comment) is kinder and helps to prevent such spirals.
Hi Ivy,
This comment was reported as needlessly unkind and assuming bad faith, which goes against forum norms, and on a second read I agree.
Accusing someone of āshitting onā the community, producing āanti-EA graffitiā, and being āunconscionable and monstrously ill-manneredā is a lot, especially based on a username that might have been intended as sarcastic rather than offensive.
Especially in particularly sensitive threads, please aim for a much higher standard before accusing someone of bad faith (including in this other comment).
Iām not questioning this decision on a whole regarding Ivyās comment, and accept that this is a sensitive thread so stricter norms will apply, but I think the original userās nameāāEugenics-Adjacentā, should at least raise some eyebrows.
I find it unlikely that it would be a coincidence that they happened to choose a name which plays on the āIām not an EA, Iām EA-adjacentā trope, and the āEugenicsā seems to relate to the Bostrom letter. Taken together, āEugenics-Adjacentā seems easily interpretable as a shot at the entire EA movement for being exactly this.
The OP also posted the first comment on this thread iirc, and set the tone off by saying:
Which includes a direct accusation the EAs will āflood the forumā with posts after controversial issues like this intentionally in order to bury this issue.
Tl;dr: Not commenting on the whole of Ivyās comment being unkind/āassuming bad faith, but I think one can also be sceptical of the original posterās motives
Thank you for noting this.
I agree with @Lorenzo Buonanno that people in EA culture should think I addressed it pretty poorly. I think that myself now, and knew that it was far from ideal at the time.
My explanation here (not excuse) is that I donāt always have the energy to call things out in the best way. In those cases itās often best to stay quiet but not always. In this case I honestly did not expect anyone would do the calling out instead? Yet I messed up egregiously. I just find it so incredibly draining to face the fact that people disrespect EA that much and that casually. It really breaks me tbh thinking itās that far gone, unjustly Iād say, so I fight against that reality. Sometimes I do think āit is so pointless, we will never stem the flow of incorrect misleading criticismā even if I donāt really think that, I feel that. So anger is what helped me get over that feeling to write a clapback I thought was worth trying.
I wish I could trust that others would also call out bad behavior and make it clear that EAs deserve respect as much as anyone. But I think what I expect more from EAs is ignoring disrespect, explaining it, steelmanning it, or politely requesting for better (which like, we are talking about a proven-rude person here so they can just brush that right off their shoulders?).
I am very sorry for writing it as harshly worded as I did though. This was a particularly egregious fuckup of mine and I want to do better. FWIW I considered deleting the comment yesterday but kinda thought that would be epistemically dishonest or something, as I didnāt want to retract the whole thing, but again I didnt have the energy to fix it. Now I will try to fix it with liberal
strikethroughsOne of the comments Ivy was responding to there began āI am encouraging you to try to exercise your empathetic muscles and understand...ā
And the comment thread we are in by someone who named this burner account of theirs āEugenics-Adjacentā began āSadly I fear stories like this are lost on the devoted EA crowd here...ā
I agree that posts on the EA forum should be kind and assume good faith.
Okay fair about this comment.
I want to push back on your linking the other comment though. I said FYI that their comment was reading to me a certain way.ā¦ isnāt that forum norms?
To be clear, I would not have commented on the other comment by itself. Still, I do think thereās a general pattern on the forum where some threads by default tend to spiral out by commenters gradually modeling each other as more and more adversarial, unless we make a significant active effort in assuming good faith and being kind[1], and I think that thread might have become an example of that.
I agree that thereās an important difference between calling someone disingenuous and mentioning that a comment reads to you as disingenuous, but I still think that discussing things on the object level (like you mostly do in the rest of the comment) is kinder and helps to prevent such spirals.
Someone wrote somewhere that discussion norms are ectotherms: need to constantly receive energy to survive, Iāve found it a helpful metaphor.
Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah you are right, and the ectotherm thing is a good analogy.