I certainly agree that it would be great if the debate was thoughtful on all sides. But I am reluctant to punish emotional responses in these contexts.
When I look at this thread, I see a lack of women participating. Exceptions: Khorton, and Julia clarifying a CEA position. There were also a couple of people whose gender I could not quickly identify.
There are various explanations for this. I am not sure the gender imbalance on this thread is actually worse than on other threads. It could be noise. But I know why I said nothing: I found writing a thoughtful, non-emotional response too hard. I expect to fail because the subject is too upsetting.
This systematically biases the debate in favour of people who bear no emotional cost in participating.
In the ‘Recent Discussion’ feed of the front page of the EA forum, I found this page between Owen Cotton-Barratt’s AMA and this question about insights in longtermist macrostrategy. The AMA had 9 usernames that appeared male to me, no usernames that appeared female to me, and 3 usernames whose gender I couldn’t discern. The macrostrategy discussion had 12 names that appeared male to me, 1 that I gathered was female based on this comment, and 3 whose gender I couldn’t discern. This should obviously be taken with a grain of salt, since determining gender from usernames is a tricky business.
Interesting, and thanks, Denise for a different take. When I read Ozzie’s comment, I thought he meant that the people leaping to Robin’s defense should consider that they might be over-emotion, chill out a bit, and practice their rationality skills. Which, I would agree with. I don’t think there’s *no* concern that reasonable people could have here. I can think of several concerns, some of which have been pointed out in the comments on this post. But I think people who are freaked out by this one decision seem just as likely to be reacting with the kind of knee-jerk fear, tribalism, confirmation bias, and slippery slope thinking that they’d be quick to criticize in others. This is human, but honestly, it’s disappointing. I’m appreciating the more measured responses on this post, though there’s still some catastrophizing that seems kind of tiresome. There’s so much of that going around in the world, I’d like to see EAs or rationalists handle it better.
I think the issue of “how rational vs. emotional should we aim for in key debates” (assume there is some kind of clean distinction) is quite tricky.
I would point out some quick thoughts, that might be wrong. 1. I’m also curious to better understand why there isn’t more discussion by women here. I could imagine a lot of possible reasons for this. It could be that people don’t feel comfortable providing emotional responses, but it could also be that people notice that responses on the other side are so emotional that there may be severe punishment. 2. Around the EA community and on Twitter, i see much more emotional-seeming arguments in support of Robin Hanson than for him. Twitter is really the worst at this. 3. Courts have established procedures for ensuring that both judges and the juries are relatively unbiased, fair, and (somewhat) rational. There’s probably some interesting theory here we could learn from. 4. I could imagine a bunch of scary situations where important communication gets much more emotional. If they get less emotional, it’s trickier to tell. I like to think that rationally minded people could help seek out biases like the one you mention and respond accordingly, instead of having to modify a large part of the culture to account for it.
“Courts have established procedures for ensuring that both judges and the juries are relatively unbiased, fair, and (somewhat) rational. There’s probably some interesting theory here we could learn from.”
In this analogy, I don’t feel like I’m commenting as a rational member of the jury, I feel like I’m commenting as an emotional witness to the impact of tolerating sexist speech in the EA community.
Yea, I think the court analogy doesn’t mean we should all aim to be “rational”, but that some of the key decision makers and discussion should hold a standard. Having others come in as emotional witnesses makes total sense, especially if it’s clear that’s what’s happening.
I certainly agree that it would be great if the debate was thoughtful on all sides. But I am reluctant to punish emotional responses in these contexts.
When I look at this thread, I see a lack of women participating. Exceptions: Khorton, and Julia clarifying a CEA position. There were also a couple of people whose gender I could not quickly identify.
There are various explanations for this. I am not sure the gender imbalance on this thread is actually worse than on other threads. It could be noise. But I know why I said nothing: I found writing a thoughtful, non-emotional response too hard. I expect to fail because the subject is too upsetting.
This systematically biases the debate in favour of people who bear no emotional cost in participating.
In the ‘Recent Discussion’ feed of the front page of the EA forum, I found this page between Owen Cotton-Barratt’s AMA and this question about insights in longtermist macrostrategy. The AMA had 9 usernames that appeared male to me, no usernames that appeared female to me, and 3 usernames whose gender I couldn’t discern. The macrostrategy discussion had 12 names that appeared male to me, 1 that I gathered was female based on this comment, and 3 whose gender I couldn’t discern. This should obviously be taken with a grain of salt, since determining gender from usernames is a tricky business.
Interesting, and thanks, Denise for a different take. When I read Ozzie’s comment, I thought he meant that the people leaping to Robin’s defense should consider that they might be over-emotion, chill out a bit, and practice their rationality skills. Which, I would agree with. I don’t think there’s *no* concern that reasonable people could have here. I can think of several concerns, some of which have been pointed out in the comments on this post. But I think people who are freaked out by this one decision seem just as likely to be reacting with the kind of knee-jerk fear, tribalism, confirmation bias, and slippery slope thinking that they’d be quick to criticize in others. This is human, but honestly, it’s disappointing. I’m appreciating the more measured responses on this post, though there’s still some catastrophizing that seems kind of tiresome. There’s so much of that going around in the world, I’d like to see EAs or rationalists handle it better.
Thanks for the points Denise, well taken.
I think the issue of “how rational vs. emotional should we aim for in key debates” (assume there is some kind of clean distinction) is quite tricky.
I would point out some quick thoughts, that might be wrong.
1. I’m also curious to better understand why there isn’t more discussion by women here. I could imagine a lot of possible reasons for this. It could be that people don’t feel comfortable providing emotional responses, but it could also be that people notice that responses on the other side are so emotional that there may be severe punishment.
2. Around the EA community and on Twitter, i see much more emotional-seeming arguments in support of Robin Hanson than for him. Twitter is really the worst at this.
3. Courts have established procedures for ensuring that both judges and the juries are relatively unbiased, fair, and (somewhat) rational. There’s probably some interesting theory here we could learn from.
4. I could imagine a bunch of scary situations where important communication gets much more emotional. If they get less emotional, it’s trickier to tell. I like to think that rationally minded people could help seek out biases like the one you mention and respond accordingly, instead of having to modify a large part of the culture to account for it.
“Courts have established procedures for ensuring that both judges and the juries are relatively unbiased, fair, and (somewhat) rational. There’s probably some interesting theory here we could learn from.”
In this analogy, I don’t feel like I’m commenting as a rational member of the jury, I feel like I’m commenting as an emotional witness to the impact of tolerating sexist speech in the EA community.
Yea, I think the court analogy doesn’t mean we should all aim to be “rational”, but that some of the key decision makers and discussion should hold a standard. Having others come in as emotional witnesses makes total sense, especially if it’s clear that’s what’s happening.