Just a point on inclusiveness: throughout this post, you implicitly assume that the average effective altruist is a heterosexual man—the sort of person who would find a girlfriend at EA Global, has Will MacAskill as his competition, and who might tell cute girls about the drowning child thought experiment. That kind of thing tends to be really alienating to women and LGBT+ people reading! It’s the same way you would feel kind of alienated if you read a post assuming that you are a woman and you’d be getting a boyfriend at EA Global. One easy way you can make posts like this more inclusive is by gender-swapping things: for example, you might keep your drowning child example, but say “social skills to find a boyfriend at EA Global.” (Will MacAskill should probably be kept as it is, because for better or for worse calling prominent men dreamy is much less socially laden than calling prominent women dreamy.)
you implicitly assume that the average effective altruist is a heterosexual man
Over 70% of EAs are men (according to the 2019 survey), and probably most of those are heterosexual (though I don’t have the statistics to hand), so that would be an accurate assumption.
More importantly, I think the meaning would likely be altered by changing the sex. The gender imbalance probably means that men have a much harder time finding a girlfriend at EAG than women would finding a boyfriend. Also, my impression is that male EAs have, on average, worse social skills than female EAs.
Rather than sacrificing accuracy, I think a better approach would be to include an explicit note about the different issues facing women. But as this is a casual, spitballing type of post, I think that even this suggestion might be over the top.
Thanks fair point. Although “throughout this post” is probably a bit harsh. The cute girl thing was explicitly mentioned to be relevant to me specifically. I certainly could have said “find a partner at EA Global” though.
P.S. Will MacAskill is the most dreamy EA of them all and this is coming from a heterosexual male.
Just a point on inclusiveness: throughout this post, you implicitly assume that the average effective altruist is a heterosexual man—the sort of person who would find a girlfriend at EA Global, has Will MacAskill as his competition, and who might tell cute girls about the drowning child thought experiment. That kind of thing tends to be really alienating to women and LGBT+ people reading! It’s the same way you would feel kind of alienated if you read a post assuming that you are a woman and you’d be getting a boyfriend at EA Global. One easy way you can make posts like this more inclusive is by gender-swapping things: for example, you might keep your drowning child example, but say “social skills to find a boyfriend at EA Global.” (Will MacAskill should probably be kept as it is, because for better or for worse calling prominent men dreamy is much less socially laden than calling prominent women dreamy.)
Agreed. I thought the framing in the OP was more than a little jarring, despite being a mostly heterosexual dude.
Over 70% of EAs are men (according to the 2019 survey), and probably most of those are heterosexual (though I don’t have the statistics to hand), so that would be an accurate assumption.
More importantly, I think the meaning would likely be altered by changing the sex. The gender imbalance probably means that men have a much harder time finding a girlfriend at EAG than women would finding a boyfriend. Also, my impression is that male EAs have, on average, worse social skills than female EAs.
Rather than sacrificing accuracy, I think a better approach would be to include an explicit note about the different issues facing women. But as this is a casual, spitballing type of post, I think that even this suggestion might be over the top.
Thanks fair point. Although “throughout this post” is probably a bit harsh. The cute girl thing was explicitly mentioned to be relevant to me specifically. I certainly could have said “find a partner at EA Global” though.
P.S. Will MacAskill is the most dreamy EA of them all and this is coming from a heterosexual male.
P.P.S Dale also makes some good points
The EAForum has an edit function. :)