This is so much more damning than the Time article. It includes deeply disturbing details instead of references to people’s feelings. We need to do so much more more soul searching over this than we did over the Time article. [Edit: I’ve been very critical of the Time article, and don’t have an opinion about whether we should be doing more soul-searching on sexual misconduct overall than we are already]. I found the contrast between the two descriptions of Joseph’s dinner with the older man particularly troubling.
This is the description in the Time article:
“In 2018, as she was starting her career in AI research, Joseph recalls being introduced to a prominent man in the field connected to EA. Joseph was 22 and still in college; he was nearly twice her age. As they talked at a Japanese restaurant in New York City, she recalled, the man turned the conversation in a bizarre direction, arguing “that pedophilic relationships between very young women and older men was a good way to transfer knowledge,” Joseph says. “I had a sense that he was grooming me.” (Joseph says she told her roommate about the alleged incident. The roommate confirmed that conversation to TIME.)”
This did not indicate that this was possibly a work related event, did not mention the man insisting on staying over, and most importantly, said he was referring to relationships between men and women, meaning that the word pedophilic would have been incorrect in this description.
I’m glad we have a better data now that indicates how important this issue is.
I honestly can’t comment on how rationalists feel about it and what they have to learn. But I don’t think non-rat EAs necessarily have to do “so much more soul searching”[edit: than we are already doing] about this. After all this entire piece is basically about the rationality community.
Oh awesome! That’s a huge relief that this specific person has likely already been dealt with. It’s a shame they didn’t mention that in this article either.
It is a shame – and I would guess a very deliberate one.
I’ve been a user on LessWrong for a long time and these events have resurfaced several times that I remember already, always instigated by something like this article, and many people discovering the evidence and allegations about them jumps to the conclusion that ‘the community’ needs to do some “soul searching” about it all.
And this recurring dynamic is extra frustrating and heated because the ‘community members’, including people that are purely/mostly just users of the site, aren’t even the same group of people each time. Older users try to point out the history and new users sort themselves into warring groups, e.g. ‘this community/site is awful/terrible/toxic/”rape culture”’ or ‘WTF, I had nothing to do with this!?’.
Having observed several different kinds of ‘communities’ try to handle this stuff, rationality/LessWrong and EA groups are – far and away – much better at actually effectively addressing it than anyone else.
People should almost certainly remain vigilant against bad behavior – as I’m sure they are – but they should also be proud of doing as good of a job as they have, especially given how hard of a job it is.
This is so much more damning than the Time article. It includes deeply disturbing details instead of references to people’s feelings. We need to do so much more more soul searching over this than we did over the Time article. [Edit: I’ve been very critical of the Time article, and don’t have an opinion about whether we should be doing more soul-searching on sexual misconduct overall than we are already]. I found the contrast between the two descriptions of Joseph’s dinner with the older man particularly troubling.
This is the description in the Time article:
“In 2018, as she was starting her career in AI research, Joseph recalls being introduced to a prominent man in the field connected to EA. Joseph was 22 and still in college; he was nearly twice her age. As they talked at a Japanese restaurant in New York City, she recalled, the man turned the conversation in a bizarre direction, arguing “that pedophilic relationships between very young women and older men was a good way to transfer knowledge,” Joseph says. “I had a sense that he was grooming me.” (Joseph says she told her roommate about the alleged incident. The roommate confirmed that conversation to TIME.)”
This did not indicate that this was possibly a work related event, did not mention the man insisting on staying over, and most importantly, said he was referring to relationships between men and women, meaning that the word pedophilic would have been incorrect in this description.
I’m glad we have a better data now that indicates how important this issue is.
It’s definitely important! It’s also important to note that this person has likely already been banned from CEA events for 5 years and some other EA spaces: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JCyX29F77Jak5gbwq/ea-sexual-harassment-and-abuse?commentId=jKJ4kLq8e6RZtTe2P
I honestly can’t comment on how rationalists feel about it and what they have to learn. But I don’t think non-rat EAs necessarily have to do “so much more soul searching”[edit: than we are already doing] about this. After all this entire piece is basically about the rationality community.
Oh awesome! That’s a huge relief that this specific person has likely already been dealt with. It’s a shame they didn’t mention that in this article either.
Mentioning that in the article would have defeated the purpose of writing it, for the person who wrote it.
It is a shame – and I would guess a very deliberate one.
I’ve been a user on LessWrong for a long time and these events have resurfaced several times that I remember already, always instigated by something like this article, and many people discovering the evidence and allegations about them jumps to the conclusion that ‘the community’ needs to do some “soul searching” about it all.
And this recurring dynamic is extra frustrating and heated because the ‘community members’, including people that are purely/mostly just users of the site, aren’t even the same group of people each time. Older users try to point out the history and new users sort themselves into warring groups, e.g. ‘this community/site is awful/terrible/toxic/”rape culture”’ or ‘WTF, I had nothing to do with this!?’.
Having observed several different kinds of ‘communities’ try to handle this stuff, rationality/LessWrong and EA groups are – far and away – much better at actually effectively addressing it than anyone else.
People should almost certainly remain vigilant against bad behavior – as I’m sure they are – but they should also be proud of doing as good of a job as they have, especially given how hard of a job it is.