But a problem I have with this is that it’s wrong to interact with people based on averages, basically. If 70% of EA women like or dislike being flirted with in X way, what do you do? Do the 30% minority just have to put up with discomfort (or, less seriously, a lack of enjoyable flirting)? Are you 70% flirtatious (pleasing no-one fully)?
I agree this is a problem, but I don’t think we solve this problem by ignoring it.
Right now men are choosing to flirt with women/not flirt with women based on some mishmash of: past experiences, flirting intuitions, cultural conditioning, etc. My claim isn’t that the approach I suggested is perfect. My claim is that it’s likely an improvement on this baseline.
I’d suggest getting the community health team to analyze the survey results and generate some guidelines that are acceptable to, say, 95% of women surveyed. Publish the guidelines and say “if you don’t like the guidelines, we recommend you avoid EA events”.
I think if EA has a major problem with sexual harassment, an approach like this could be really effective. On the other hand, if sexual harassment is not actually much of a problem in EA, we may as well continue with the current approach.
I think the problem with checklists is that fundamentally, negotiating social interactions so that everyone is happy and comfortable, and flirting and appropriate escalation, are social skills. And social skills tend to be fuzzy and involve very different types of thinking than analysis, or rule-following. So when people throw their hands up in despair, or ask for explicit rules, it feels a bit like they’re getting annoyed that they can’t just throw their technical skills at a social-skills problem. (Written as someone who finds some social skills hard, including in the areas of flirting/romance)
First, I suspect there are cultures in which romantic interactions are much more ritualized than our current culture. Flirting doesn’t have to be this super fuzzy thing if we don’t want it to be.
I also think there’s room for social skills in the approach I suggested. People seem to believe there are situations where you shouldn’t flirt with someone even if you think they’re trying to flirt with you—some examples might be: when you’re interviewing them for a job, when you’re in a confined space, when you’re on a deserted street late at night, etc. Basically, social perception can just be another factor on the list of factors to consider. But, as you state, it’s an inherently fuzzy factor, so it probably shouldn’t be as load-bearing as it currently is.
I don’t know Owen that well—I’ve probably interacted with him for half an hour or something—but he never struck me as particularly deficient in social skills. My guess is if he had read this situation accurately, and the woman in question appreciated his edginess, we never would’ve heard about any of this. People seem to favor a really punitive approach to Owen’s actions, but the problem is that even if you’re really good at reading social situations, say 99% accurate, there are always going to be those 1% misreadings which show up if you have a large enough number of social interactions.
Speaking for myself, I don’t think I am notably deficient in social skills. I enjoy social deduction games, acting classes, etc. In my mind, the issue has more to do with differing moral intuitions, especially regarding when harsh punishments are appropriate. (My own moral intuitions would be along the lines of: “First, there is no such thing as a romantically or sexually successful person who has never ever creeped anyone out. Give yourself permission to be creepy. I am not saying that you should go around trying to creep people out… [but, stuff happens].”) I’m usually comfortable trusting my social intuitions, but when so many condemn so harshly based on a short description of a situation with very little social context, that’s when I wonder if social intuitions are really enough.
Maybe a good intuition pump is: Imagine if people could send you to jail if they thought you were being kind of an asshole. Can you see how you would be tempted to stop posting on social media and never leave your room? Even if you’re fairly skilled socially, it’s inevitable that people will sometimes think you’re being kind of an asshole, unless you have an unhealthy obsession with what others think. Now consider that, as far as I can tell, Owen’s crime was essentially “being kind of an asshole”, but in the romantic/sexual domain. If the costs of “being kind of an asshole” in the romantic/sexual domain are much higher than in other domains—I have no particular reason to doubt that—then maybe it’s worthwhile to add in additional precautions beyond just “use social skills”?
I agree this is a problem, but I don’t think we solve this problem by ignoring it.
Right now men are choosing to flirt with women/not flirt with women based on some mishmash of: past experiences, flirting intuitions, cultural conditioning, etc. My claim isn’t that the approach I suggested is perfect. My claim is that it’s likely an improvement on this baseline.
I’d suggest getting the community health team to analyze the survey results and generate some guidelines that are acceptable to, say, 95% of women surveyed. Publish the guidelines and say “if you don’t like the guidelines, we recommend you avoid EA events”.
I think if EA has a major problem with sexual harassment, an approach like this could be really effective. On the other hand, if sexual harassment is not actually much of a problem in EA, we may as well continue with the current approach.
First, I suspect there are cultures in which romantic interactions are much more ritualized than our current culture. Flirting doesn’t have to be this super fuzzy thing if we don’t want it to be.
I also think there’s room for social skills in the approach I suggested. People seem to believe there are situations where you shouldn’t flirt with someone even if you think they’re trying to flirt with you—some examples might be: when you’re interviewing them for a job, when you’re in a confined space, when you’re on a deserted street late at night, etc. Basically, social perception can just be another factor on the list of factors to consider. But, as you state, it’s an inherently fuzzy factor, so it probably shouldn’t be as load-bearing as it currently is.
I don’t know Owen that well—I’ve probably interacted with him for half an hour or something—but he never struck me as particularly deficient in social skills. My guess is if he had read this situation accurately, and the woman in question appreciated his edginess, we never would’ve heard about any of this. People seem to favor a really punitive approach to Owen’s actions, but the problem is that even if you’re really good at reading social situations, say 99% accurate, there are always going to be those 1% misreadings which show up if you have a large enough number of social interactions.
Speaking for myself, I don’t think I am notably deficient in social skills. I enjoy social deduction games, acting classes, etc. In my mind, the issue has more to do with differing moral intuitions, especially regarding when harsh punishments are appropriate. (My own moral intuitions would be along the lines of: “First, there is no such thing as a romantically or sexually successful person who has never ever creeped anyone out. Give yourself permission to be creepy. I am not saying that you should go around trying to creep people out… [but, stuff happens].”) I’m usually comfortable trusting my social intuitions, but when so many condemn so harshly based on a short description of a situation with very little social context, that’s when I wonder if social intuitions are really enough.
Maybe a good intuition pump is: Imagine if people could send you to jail if they thought you were being kind of an asshole. Can you see how you would be tempted to stop posting on social media and never leave your room? Even if you’re fairly skilled socially, it’s inevitable that people will sometimes think you’re being kind of an asshole, unless you have an unhealthy obsession with what others think. Now consider that, as far as I can tell, Owen’s crime was essentially “being kind of an asshole”, but in the romantic/sexual domain. If the costs of “being kind of an asshole” in the romantic/sexual domain are much higher than in other domains—I have no particular reason to doubt that—then maybe it’s worthwhile to add in additional precautions beyond just “use social skills”?