To be clear, the thing I was wishing we had resolved internally was much more the widespread pressure to be polyamorous in (at least some parts of?) EA rather than individual people’s relationships; as you say, it would not be appropriate for the EA community to have a discussion about how to “resolve” your personal relationships. What would that even mean?
However, I think that this is far from the first time that major cultural issues with polyamory and unwelcome pressure to be polyamorous have been brought up, and it does seem to me that that’s the kind of thing that could have been handled earlier if we were more on the ball. In the article, Gopalakrishnan mentions having raised her concerns earlier only to be dismissed and attacked, told that she was “bigoted” against polyamorous people, etc. -- and she is not the first one to have raised such issues either!
Ideally, I’d like to see an EA culture that doesn’t promote polyamory over monogamy or use it to pressure people into unwanted romantic or sexual relationships, and I think that can be accomplished without community organizations overstepping their bounds.
In the article, Gopalakrishnan mentions having raised her concerns earlier only to be dismissed and attacked, told that she was “bigoted” against polyamorous people
The article has “One commenter wrote that her post was ‘bigoted’ against polyamorous people.”
While Gopalakrishnan has deleted the post and the comments are no longer visible, my memory is that the comment describing her as saying something bigoted was reasonable?
I completely agree that OP raises totally legitimate points that are worthy of being taken seriously.
However, I am grateful for you initial comment and really disagree that the issue here is being emotional and impressionistic. The problem with the post is that it is bigoted. OP makes a central issue of people not respecting one’s “poly/mono” choice and then proceeds to suggest that women in poly relationships are unhappy and that poly men are uniquely likely to be sexual predators. This is all framed as a matter of OP’s experience, and I have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of it all. But that doesn’t excuse framing the issue as a matter of one’s choice to be poly or not. Imagine if this framing was done for any other group. Even if you have legitimate negative experiences with members of a certain group, framing the issue as relevant to membership in that group without any evidence whatsoever is unfair to say the least. This is especially true for something like sexual pressure, which monogamous people have been engaging in far and wide since the dawn of time. In any case, it is a really tired trope to paint anyone who does not fall very neatly in line with conventional ideas of relationship structures as a sexual predator.
It’s also frankly quite hypocritical in that OP seems to be the one not respecting others “mono/poly” choice.
None of this is to say that OPs experiences are not real or that they are not a problem. Of course they are! But that does not make this a fair or productive post and it would have been much better received if OP didn’t make it about something irrelevant.
I was the original commenter and will add that I have never suggested that polyamory is for everyone or that it is inherently more rational or superior. I merely ask that people mind their own business.
I stand by my original claim that the post was bigoted.
To clarify, I do not think it is bigoted to think that polyamory is unwise or that it creates unhealthy dynamics (I disagree, but that’s a different matter). I do think it is bigoted to claim without solid evidence that people who practice it are more likely to commit assault. I also think that regardless of what dynamics it creates, it is wildly inappropriate to suggest that the mere prevalence of polyamory should in any way be”addressed by the community” (Kelsey explained this better than I could, so I will leave it at that).
I do think it is bigoted to claim without solid evidence that people who practice it are more likely to commit assault
I agree that this would be bigoted. But as far as I can tell, the linked post never claimed this?
All I can see is the OP recounting cases of her own experience with predatory behaviour within the EA community, where several people tried to pressure her into becoming polyamorous.
The post literally states that “this is not a criticism of polyamory itself”. I think the characterization of the post as bigoted is completely out of line.
To be clear, the thing I was wishing we had resolved internally was much more the widespread pressure to be polyamorous in (at least some parts of?) EA rather than individual people’s relationships; as you say, it would not be appropriate for the EA community to have a discussion about how to “resolve” your personal relationships. What would that even mean?
However, I think that this is far from the first time that major cultural issues with polyamory and unwelcome pressure to be polyamorous have been brought up, and it does seem to me that that’s the kind of thing that could have been handled earlier if we were more on the ball. In the article, Gopalakrishnan mentions having raised her concerns earlier only to be dismissed and attacked, told that she was “bigoted” against polyamorous people, etc. -- and she is not the first one to have raised such issues either!
Ideally, I’d like to see an EA culture that doesn’t promote polyamory over monogamy or use it to pressure people into unwanted romantic or sexual relationships, and I think that can be accomplished without community organizations overstepping their bounds.
The article has “One commenter wrote that her post was ‘bigoted’ against polyamorous people.”
While Gopalakrishnan has deleted the post and the comments are no longer visible, my memory is that the comment describing her as saying something bigoted was reasonable?
While she deleted her cross-post, the original post is still up: Women and Effective Altruism.
The comment calling the post “bigoted” is listed on https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/monica if you scroll back to comments from three months ago. It was:
Thank you for adding context, Jeff.
I was the original commenter and will add that I have never suggested that polyamory is for everyone or that it is inherently more rational or superior. I merely ask that people mind their own business.
I stand by my original claim that the post was bigoted.
To clarify, I do not think it is bigoted to think that polyamory is unwise or that it creates unhealthy dynamics (I disagree, but that’s a different matter). I do think it is bigoted to claim without solid evidence that people who practice it are more likely to commit assault. I also think that regardless of what dynamics it creates, it is wildly inappropriate to suggest that the mere prevalence of polyamory should in any way be”addressed by the community” (Kelsey explained this better than I could, so I will leave it at that).
I agree that this would be bigoted. But as far as I can tell, the linked post never claimed this?
All I can see is the OP recounting cases of her own experience with predatory behaviour within the EA community, where several people tried to pressure her into becoming polyamorous.
The post literally states that “this is not a criticism of polyamory itself”. I think the characterization of the post as bigoted is completely out of line.