Thank you for writing it and keeping this up. I think it’s really valuable that people share the discomfort they feel around the way some people discuss. I wonder if Kelsey Piper’s discussion of competing access needs and safe spaces captures the issue at hand.
Competing access needs is the idea that some people, in order to be able to participate in a community, need one thing, and other people need a conflicting thing (source)
For some people it is really valuable to have a space where one can discuss sensitive topics without caring about offense, where taking offense is discouraged because it would hinder progressing the arguments. Maybe even a space where one is encouraged to let one’s mind go to places that are uncomfortable, to develop one’s thinking around topics where social norms discourage you to go.
For others, a space like this would be distressing, depressing and demotivating. A space like this might offer a few insights, but they seem not worth the emotional costs and there seem to be many other topics to explore from an EA perspective, so why spend any time there.
I also hope that it is very easy for people to avoid spaces like this at EA conferences, e.g. to avoid a talk by Robin Hanson (though from the few talks of him that I saw I think his talks are much less “edgy” than the discussed blog posts). I wonder if it would be useful to tag sessions at an EA conference that would belong into the described space, or if people mostly correctly avoid sessions they would find discomforting already.
One idea in the direction of making discussion norms explicit that just came to my mind are Crocker’s rules.
By declaring commitment to Crocker’s rules, one authorizes other debaters to optimize their messages for information, even when this entails that emotional feelings will be disregarded. This means that you have accepted full responsibility for the operation of your own mind, so that if you’re offended, it’s your own fault.
I’ve heard that some people are unhappy with those rules. Maybe because they seem to signal what Khorton alluded to: “Oh, of course I can accommodate your small-minded irrational sensitivities if you don’t want a message optimized for information”. I know that they are/were used in the LessWrong Community Weekends in Berlin, where you would where a “Crocker’s rules” sticker on your nametag.
Thank you for writing it and keeping this up. I think it’s really valuable that people share the discomfort they feel around the way some people discuss. I wonder if Kelsey Piper’s discussion of competing access needs and safe spaces captures the issue at hand.
For some people it is really valuable to have a space where one can discuss sensitive topics without caring about offense, where taking offense is discouraged because it would hinder progressing the arguments. Maybe even a space where one is encouraged to let one’s mind go to places that are uncomfortable, to develop one’s thinking around topics where social norms discourage you to go.
For others, a space like this would be distressing, depressing and demotivating. A space like this might offer a few insights, but they seem not worth the emotional costs and there seem to be many other topics to explore from an EA perspective, so why spend any time there.
I also hope that it is very easy for people to avoid spaces like this at EA conferences, e.g. to avoid a talk by Robin Hanson (though from the few talks of him that I saw I think his talks are much less “edgy” than the discussed blog posts). I wonder if it would be useful to tag sessions at an EA conference that would belong into the described space, or if people mostly correctly avoid sessions they would find discomforting already.
One idea in the direction of making discussion norms explicit that just came to my mind are Crocker’s rules.
I’ve heard that some people are unhappy with those rules. Maybe because they seem to signal what Khorton alluded to: “Oh, of course I can accommodate your small-minded irrational sensitivities if you don’t want a message optimized for information”. I know that they are/were used in the LessWrong Community Weekends in Berlin, where you would where a “Crocker’s rules” sticker on your nametag.