So thanks for the comment. And please let me maybe list some of my concerns here. I was going to contact Community Health Team directly, but then I thought that maybe I should write my opinion as a comment here as it may be a generally useful. It is a purely emotional reaction but like, I don’t feel fine with what’s going on. And because of that, this is also a burner account. For the record, I’m a woman.
TLTR: I feel that the reaction to the Times and Vox articles within the community starts to be abusive and highly problematic in itself. I feel unsafe and I may resign from being a part of the EA.
Let me check if I understand Owen’s situation correctly – he acted in an inappropriate way multiple times. If he was told that his behavior is not ok, he always would say sorry and stop interacting in an inappropriate way with this particular person.
In one of the situations, a woman (let’s call her X) got hurt. X contacted Community Health Team. They reacted, in a way that X appreciated. She thanked. Owen apologized. Later on, X believed that the problem of sexual harassment within the community didn’t disappear, so messaged the TIMES to do something about it. She has, however, contacted Owen and i.e. helped him write his statement. He is sorry, and is going to work on himself to address the problem.
Am I right?
If no, please correct me.
If yes: Owen is sorry, got his consequences (life-breaking consequences), he is going to change. We know his side of the story, and if he is not lying, he seems to me as a creepy guy who really fucked up, but not uprooted rapist. And I’m saying – yes, let’s make sure he and similar people are not a danger to anyone. But I have a feeling that the community takes revenge on him for all the tension the recent events left. This is cruel. I’m honestly worried if the guy is ok. Hope he is.
And this is just one thing which shocks me. There are other attempts to suggest rigid rules for the whole community (i.e. suggesting not to “sleep around” in general), many comments are polyphobic, people make multiple ableist statements (“if you are socially awkward – don’t have sex”, “being tolerant to weirdness is a problem”). This post is a great example, among others: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aGkLx2hfr9s3mSdng/consider-not-sleeping-around-within-the-community-1 At this point I don’t feel safe in the community and sexual harassment is not my main issue. Which in the perspective of recent event is an absurd. In general I’m shocked by the situation.
So please help. I have a couple of concerns.
I feel the community is on its best way to decide that sex is bad if it’s not in closed monogamous relationships. I don’t want to function in such community. I’m polyamorous, I definitely tend to sleep around and I feel liberated by that, as I’m from a religious, conservative culture. I feel that people want to impose rigid rules not where they are needed and prevent harm, but also where they stop freedom of others—my freedom—just to feel safe. I think it won’t work, but it will cause harm. Also, as a poly person, I feel quite bullied and shamed. Could you please help address the issue here? At least polyphobia please.
Should I treat EA community as my workplace and not have sex with people who are just my friends? If no, what about men who are (in some, not direct ways – i.e. longer tenure in the EA) “above me” in the EA power structure, who get my enthusiastic consent? Like, would it be not appropriate to ask them out?
I’m not from American culture. Cultural norms in my country are quite different—also those regarding sexual behavior, and multiple -isms. I am afraid of making some mistake which hurts someone – but I always believed in this community people would communicate clearly, tell me what happened so I could apologize and address my behavior. Now, I’m afraid of being told that “everything is fine” and getting burned to the ground later on. It may be stupid, but what do I even do about that? I would be scared to talk to some people now. And usually I pride myself to be very outspoken.
I know it’s irrational, but currently I would be scared to report sexual misconduct to people I don’t know well, or even to share my experiences with people who are not really close to me, as they may react very strongly (or may feel obliged to act very strongly) without any consideration to other’s side basic well-being. I would never want to destroy person’s life, I just want to be safe. Health Team’s reactions were what I would like to see if I ever was a victim of some misconduct(I know you think you could do more) - and yet, you got a backlash for it. People may be afraid of such backlash and may try to react very strongly each time to avoid it. What do I do?
I dunno, I’ve noticed myself feeling the same recently and it feels pretty rational to me.
As in I used to feel relatively comfortable sharing/complaining about anything that made me feel uncomfortable in EA, but now when I try to imagine myself doing so I’m like, “Haha there’s no way in hell I’m ever reporting anything to Community Health now and I know I have to be pretty damn careful and selective these days if I want to tell any friends.”
I think ‘disproportionate reactions disincentivise openness’ is a really underappreciated phenomenon in a lot of areas—thanks for highlighting it here.
To be fair, I think these kind of over-reactions are happening in lots of places. I think it’s particularly pronounced in social/political movements though because they attract a lot of people who are very passionate about social justice. And like, in a way I really admire that, and I think that energy can be very valuable when targeted at the most serious forms of human/nonhuman rights abuses.
But like, if the bar for resignation is the harmful actions Owen’s committed.....almost everyone in the world should resign?
(I realise I may have lost literally everyone reading this comment with that last sentence. I’ve only just noticed the extent to which I disagree with the community here and I’m pretty shocked myself, so I should flag that I’m feeling particularly skeptical of my inside view. Maybe best not to debate this in public though as I imagine a lot of details/examples could be triggering for a lot of us.)
Ubuntu, thanks for writing it even if it’s hard, I’m sending you massive hugs. I disagree with a community to a huge extent and that’s why I’ve created a burner account to do it. I think a lot of people are scared of speaking up now, because we have a very vocal, and pretty aggressive group. A group-think consensus is not something we agree with, and there’s a strong rhetoric of you-are-a-bad-person-if-you-think-differently-than-us. In a long-term, however, I’m not willing to trade personal integrity for being a part of a group, because I think the values EA exhibits right now are harmful. So it may happen that I’ll leave the community, as stated in the post above.
I don’t think you disagree with the community. You disagree with a smallish number of people who are active on the forums, and who on average are younger and more newly entered the community.
‘the community’ as a whole does not have an opinion of this, but due to fear of being seen as defending bad behavior, I think there is a strong tendency to self censor on only one side of this discussion. At the very least I know I self censor.
But I have a feeling that the community takes revenge on him for all the tension the recent events left. This is cruel. I’m honestly worried if the guy is ok. Hope he is.
The key to Girard’s anthropological theory is what he calls the scapegoat mechanism. Just as desires tend to converge on the same object, violence tends to converge on the same victim. The violence of all against all gives way to the violence of all against one. When the crowd vents its violence on a common scapegoat, unity is restored. Sacrificial rites the world over are rooted in this mechanism.
I guess, I think that people are upset and it will become clearer what the concensus is in time and I am confident we as a community can do better than the first ideas we suggest.
Yeah, but, where is a boundary? And how do we set it? I’m mean—it’s not like things you say or do because you are upset have no effect. And in my opinion those reactions already went from “intense” to “dangerous and cruel”.
So thanks for the comment. And please let me maybe list some of my concerns here. I was going to contact Community Health Team directly, but then I thought that maybe I should write my opinion as a comment here as it may be a generally useful. It is a purely emotional reaction but like, I don’t feel fine with what’s going on. And because of that, this is also a burner account. For the record, I’m a woman.
TLTR: I feel that the reaction to the Times and Vox articles within the community starts to be abusive and highly problematic in itself. I feel unsafe and I may resign from being a part of the EA.
Let me check if I understand Owen’s situation correctly – he acted in an inappropriate way multiple times. If he was told that his behavior is not ok, he always would say sorry and stop interacting in an inappropriate way with this particular person.
In one of the situations, a woman (let’s call her X) got hurt. X contacted Community Health Team. They reacted, in a way that X appreciated. She thanked. Owen apologized. Later on, X believed that the problem of sexual harassment within the community didn’t disappear, so messaged the TIMES to do something about it. She has, however, contacted Owen and i.e. helped him write his statement. He is sorry, and is going to work on himself to address the problem.
Am I right?
If no, please correct me.
If yes: Owen is sorry, got his consequences (life-breaking consequences), he is going to change. We know his side of the story, and if he is not lying, he seems to me as a creepy guy who really fucked up, but not uprooted rapist. And I’m saying – yes, let’s make sure he and similar people are not a danger to anyone. But I have a feeling that the community takes revenge on him for all the tension the recent events left. This is cruel. I’m honestly worried if the guy is ok. Hope he is.
And this is just one thing which shocks me. There are other attempts to suggest rigid rules for the whole community (i.e. suggesting not to “sleep around” in general), many comments are polyphobic, people make multiple ableist statements (“if you are socially awkward – don’t have sex”, “being tolerant to weirdness is a problem”). This post is a great example, among others: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aGkLx2hfr9s3mSdng/consider-not-sleeping-around-within-the-community-1
At this point I don’t feel safe in the community and sexual harassment is not my main issue. Which in the perspective of recent event is an absurd. In general I’m shocked by the situation.
So please help. I have a couple of concerns.
I feel the community is on its best way to decide that sex is bad if it’s not in closed monogamous relationships. I don’t want to function in such community. I’m polyamorous, I definitely tend to sleep around and I feel liberated by that, as I’m from a religious, conservative culture. I feel that people want to impose rigid rules not where they are needed and prevent harm, but also where they stop freedom of others—my freedom—just to feel safe. I think it won’t work, but it will cause harm. Also, as a poly person, I feel quite bullied and shamed. Could you please help address the issue here? At least polyphobia please.
Should I treat EA community as my workplace and not have sex with people who are just my friends? If no, what about men who are (in some, not direct ways – i.e. longer tenure in the EA) “above me” in the EA power structure, who get my enthusiastic consent? Like, would it be not appropriate to ask them out?
I’m not from American culture. Cultural norms in my country are quite different—also those regarding sexual behavior, and multiple -isms. I am afraid of making some mistake which hurts someone – but I always believed in this community people would communicate clearly, tell me what happened so I could apologize and address my behavior. Now, I’m afraid of being told that “everything is fine” and getting burned to the ground later on. It may be stupid, but what do I even do about that? I would be scared to talk to some people now. And usually I pride myself to be very outspoken.
I know it’s irrational, but currently I would be scared to report sexual misconduct to people I don’t know well, or even to share my experiences with people who are not really close to me, as they may react very strongly (or may feel obliged to act very strongly) without any consideration to other’s side basic well-being. I would never want to destroy person’s life, I just want to be safe. Health Team’s reactions were what I would like to see if I ever was a victim of some misconduct(I know you think you could do more) - and yet, you got a backlash for it. People may be afraid of such backlash and may try to react very strongly each time to avoid it. What do I do?
“I know it’s irrational...”
I dunno, I’ve noticed myself feeling the same recently and it feels pretty rational to me.
As in I used to feel relatively comfortable sharing/complaining about anything that made me feel uncomfortable in EA, but now when I try to imagine myself doing so I’m like, “Haha there’s no way in hell I’m ever reporting anything to Community Health now and I know I have to be pretty damn careful and selective these days if I want to tell any friends.”
I think ‘disproportionate reactions disincentivise openness’ is a really underappreciated phenomenon in a lot of areas—thanks for highlighting it here.
(I’m also a woman, for the record.)
To be fair, I think these kind of over-reactions are happening in lots of places. I think it’s particularly pronounced in social/political movements though because they attract a lot of people who are very passionate about social justice. And like, in a way I really admire that, and I think that energy can be very valuable when targeted at the most serious forms of human/nonhuman rights abuses.
But like, if the bar for resignation is the harmful actions Owen’s committed.....almost everyone in the world should resign?
(I realise I may have lost literally everyone reading this comment with that last sentence. I’ve only just noticed the extent to which I disagree with the community here and I’m pretty shocked myself, so I should flag that I’m feeling particularly skeptical of my inside view. Maybe best not to debate this in public though as I imagine a lot of details/examples could be triggering for a lot of us.)
Ubuntu, thanks for writing it even if it’s hard, I’m sending you massive hugs.
I disagree with a community to a huge extent and that’s why I’ve created a burner account to do it. I think a lot of people are scared of speaking up now, because we have a very vocal, and pretty aggressive group. A group-think consensus is not something we agree with, and there’s a strong rhetoric of you-are-a-bad-person-if-you-think-differently-than-us.
In a long-term, however, I’m not willing to trade personal integrity for being a part of a group, because I think the values EA exhibits right now are harmful. So it may happen that I’ll leave the community, as stated in the post above.
I don’t think you disagree with the community. You disagree with a smallish number of people who are active on the forums, and who on average are younger and more newly entered the community.
‘the community’ as a whole does not have an opinion of this, but due to fear of being seen as defending bad behavior, I think there is a strong tendency to self censor on only one side of this discussion. At the very least I know I self censor.
The scapegoat mechanism comes to mind:
Sorry to hear this.
And I’m glad someone said some of this.
I guess, I think that people are upset and it will become clearer what the concensus is in time and I am confident we as a community can do better than the first ideas we suggest.
Yeah, but, where is a boundary? And how do we set it? I’m mean—it’s not like things you say or do because you are upset have no effect. And in my opinion those reactions already went from “intense” to “dangerous and cruel”.