I like this comment; the events analogy, in particular, shifted some of my beliefs and gave me a useful frame I had overlooked before. Apologies if you’ve already covered this in other comments.
My impression is that, if asked, many people would say that EA is significantly worse than other spaces. There’s some amount of trying to figure out which other spaces are reasonable to compare to, which allows people to agree with some versions and disagree with others, but on a vibes level, I feel like people think EA is significantly worse. [1] Idk if this is useful, but unlike (most?) other commenters, I do think Nathan is responding to a real sentiment.
Re “why do we even care about a baseline?” Ime, when harassment gets brought up (e.g. on the forum), people say that there were basic/common/cheap/expected mitigations that would have prevented the incident. If it turns out that most other orgs/communities, in fact, don’t have these measures in place or are similarly bad at mitigating problems, then imo it’s harder for proponents of change to argue that “EA” “should”[2] solve the problem. [3]
I liked the events analogy—one reason why I don’t care that much about baselines for events (particiularly ones I have little connection to) is that most events are just … pretty bad—or at least bad at achieving goals that are analogous to mine, and if I expected a similar level of success to them, I’d spend my time doing other stuff, but I do care a lot about the performance of events that seem particularly great and where my events stack up compared to those (maybe a baseline for “competent according to me” events) - idk if there are transparent groups out there that are doing a really great job in this area and would meet the standards of forum commenters but if there are I would be curious to hear about them.
As an aside, talking about this topic does seem pretty cursed, and I don’t think there’s much upside socially to being on the “EA is no worse than others” side or even the “idk man, it’s pretty confusing how bad EA is on this dimension” side.
To be clear, I mean “should” in more of a deontological sense than a consequentialist one. I do care about outcomes in the world, but I just don’t think it’s possible to have an online discussion about the consequentialist case that couldn’t ~only engage with one side.
“My impression is that, if asked, many people would say that EA is significantly worse than other spaces.”
I found this useful! It’s good to know what others are seeing & hearing. FWIW, my personal experience with this is something vague, like:
I know I’ve seen tweets to this effect over the years. I think I remember someone prominent mentioning that they found EA (and EA conferences) to be somewhat worse than econ (on sexism or similar)
My in-person experience with this type of thing is much more nuanced. I.e. when I discuss this with community members or adjacent, I don’t usually hear one claim about whether EA is better or worse, I tend to hear a more nuanced collection of ways in which EA might be particularly bad, and other ways in which it compares to past jobs, industries, communities, etc. I’ve definitely heard from women who were frustrated/tired of the sexism and left. This happens in comparable communities if you consider, e.g., tech comparable.
Several times, I’ve personally mentioned that I don’t suspect EA is particularly worse, both online and in-person. In june, 2025, I wrote “I don’t think the EA community is particularly sexist. As it turns out, sexism is everywhere. I also don’t think it’s particularly not sexist, though that’s tricky for me to gauge as one person with one set of experiences. However, I do feel comfortable saying that EA has a unique flavour of sexism that I had to learn to navigate and defend against.” I’ve personally never had any problems making this claim or faced visible social repercussions for it. FWIW I’m not actually sure I still think this, I basically just don’t know what I think. If someone actually had good data on this or carefully reasoned thoughts, I’d definitely read it.
“Re “why do we even care about a baseline?” Ime, when harassment gets brought up (e.g. on the forum), people say that there were basic/common/cheap/expected mitigations that would have prevented the incident.”
My hot take is that, a lot of the people who suggest this don’t have a super developed understanding of sexual harassment, or they don’t have much real-world experience, or they’re quite young. I personally don’t think there is some quick fix. Partly because EA has unique features that drive its gendered-issues. Unfortunately, this is actually a more doomy view than the idea that there are quick fixes, because it further supports that women who find the community difficult to tolerate/navigate should just leave.
Over the past couple months, I’ve intentionally began to try and distance myself from EA and been much happier for it (I don’t do in-person meetup type stuff much anymore, am trying to do less “directly EA” online stuff, and I don’t know if I’d ever consider doing meta-EA work again). I guess you could say that I’m implying EA is worse than comparable communities, but I don’t mean it that way. It’s just like, these days I do my job and hang out with my friends/family, and I only check the forum if I get an email notification that my post has been mentioned because I forgot to turn off email notifications for mentions :’)
So I guess that’s where I’m coming from when I say that I personally don’t care much for this comparison. I feel like I have enough personal, direct, and specific data to conclude something is going wrong and something isn’t meeting my standards. I’m realising that’s a way in which I’m ill-placed for this discussion. If I didn’t have a pretty thorough view formed over years, base rate might also be the first thing I want to understand. I guess I’m just personally well past that, but I’ve updated that this specific idea is worth discussing on the forum. I’m sceptical it will ever be done well, but alas.
I’m sorry that you’re much happier for distancing yourself from EA—but I’m glad that you’re much happier now!
> If I didn’t have a pretty thorough view formed over years, base rate might also be the first thing I want to understand. I guess I’m just personally well past that
I relate to feeling this way about other topics. Normally, I just roll my eyes and don’t really engage with online discussions, but for fwiw I appreciate you giving your thoughts here—it was, at the very least, helpful for me.
I like this comment; the events analogy, in particular, shifted some of my beliefs and gave me a useful frame I had overlooked before. Apologies if you’ve already covered this in other comments.
My impression is that, if asked, many people would say that EA is significantly worse than other spaces. There’s some amount of trying to figure out which other spaces are reasonable to compare to, which allows people to agree with some versions and disagree with others, but on a vibes level, I feel like people think EA is significantly worse. [1] Idk if this is useful, but unlike (most?) other commenters, I do think Nathan is responding to a real sentiment.
Re “why do we even care about a baseline?” Ime, when harassment gets brought up (e.g. on the forum), people say that there were basic/common/cheap/expected mitigations that would have prevented the incident. If it turns out that most other orgs/communities, in fact, don’t have these measures in place or are similarly bad at mitigating problems, then imo it’s harder for proponents of change to argue that “EA” “should”[2] solve the problem. [3]
I liked the events analogy—one reason why I don’t care that much about baselines for events (particiularly ones I have little connection to) is that most events are just … pretty bad—or at least bad at achieving goals that are analogous to mine, and if I expected a similar level of success to them, I’d spend my time doing other stuff, but I do care a lot about the performance of events that seem particularly great and where my events stack up compared to those (maybe a baseline for “competent according to me” events) - idk if there are transparent groups out there that are doing a really great job in this area and would meet the standards of forum commenters but if there are I would be curious to hear about them.
As an aside, talking about this topic does seem pretty cursed, and I don’t think there’s much upside socially to being on the “EA is no worse than others” side or even the “idk man, it’s pretty confusing how bad EA is on this dimension” side.
To be clear, I mean “should” in more of a deontological sense than a consequentialist one. I do care about outcomes in the world, but I just don’t think it’s possible to have an online discussion about the consequentialist case that couldn’t ~only engage with one side.
It might even point to the problem being unusually difficult to solve (otherwise, why haven’t the other well-intentioned communities solved it?).
Hi Caleb! :)
I found this useful! It’s good to know what others are seeing & hearing. FWIW, my personal experience with this is something vague, like:
I know I’ve seen tweets to this effect over the years. I think I remember someone prominent mentioning that they found EA (and EA conferences) to be somewhat worse than econ (on sexism or similar)
My in-person experience with this type of thing is much more nuanced. I.e. when I discuss this with community members or adjacent, I don’t usually hear one claim about whether EA is better or worse, I tend to hear a more nuanced collection of ways in which EA might be particularly bad, and other ways in which it compares to past jobs, industries, communities, etc. I’ve definitely heard from women who were frustrated/tired of the sexism and left. This happens in comparable communities if you consider, e.g., tech comparable.
Several times, I’ve personally mentioned that I don’t suspect EA is particularly worse, both online and in-person. In june, 2025, I wrote “I don’t think the EA community is particularly sexist. As it turns out, sexism is everywhere. I also don’t think it’s particularly not sexist, though that’s tricky for me to gauge as one person with one set of experiences. However, I do feel comfortable saying that EA has a unique flavour of sexism that I had to learn to navigate and defend against.” I’ve personally never had any problems making this claim or faced visible social repercussions for it. FWIW I’m not actually sure I still think this, I basically just don’t know what I think. If someone actually had good data on this or carefully reasoned thoughts, I’d definitely read it.
My hot take is that, a lot of the people who suggest this don’t have a super developed understanding of sexual harassment, or they don’t have much real-world experience, or they’re quite young. I personally don’t think there is some quick fix. Partly because EA has unique features that drive its gendered-issues. Unfortunately, this is actually a more doomy view than the idea that there are quick fixes, because it further supports that women who find the community difficult to tolerate/navigate should just leave.
Over the past couple months, I’ve intentionally began to try and distance myself from EA and been much happier for it (I don’t do in-person meetup type stuff much anymore, am trying to do less “directly EA” online stuff, and I don’t know if I’d ever consider doing meta-EA work again). I guess you could say that I’m implying EA is worse than comparable communities, but I don’t mean it that way. It’s just like, these days I do my job and hang out with my friends/family, and I only check the forum if I get an email notification that my post has been mentioned because I forgot to turn off email notifications for mentions :’)
So I guess that’s where I’m coming from when I say that I personally don’t care much for this comparison. I feel like I have enough personal, direct, and specific data to conclude something is going wrong and something isn’t meeting my standards. I’m realising that’s a way in which I’m ill-placed for this discussion. If I didn’t have a pretty thorough view formed over years, base rate might also be the first thing I want to understand. I guess I’m just personally well past that, but I’ve updated that this specific idea is worth discussing on the forum. I’m sceptical it will ever be done well, but alas.
Ah yeah, that all makes sense.
I’m sorry that you’re much happier for distancing yourself from EA—but I’m glad that you’re much happier now!
> If I didn’t have a pretty thorough view formed over years, base rate might also be the first thing I want to understand. I guess I’m just personally well past that
I relate to feeling this way about other topics. Normally, I just roll my eyes and don’t really engage with online discussions, but for fwiw I appreciate you giving your thoughts here—it was, at the very least, helpful for me.