I’m really sorry that you’re feeling this way. I think a lot of us have strong emotions about this news and don’t know how to process it. Given that you wrote “[hastily written],” I assume that this comment is helping you process the news.
At the same time, I think it’s important for us to not slip away from our norms on the Forum, which include making sure the space is welcoming to different groups of people, including men. There are a few different ways to interpret the part of your comment that’s about men. Unfortunately, I think right now it’s not clear whether you’re saying that “there are no decent men” (which would be norm-violating). (If you replace “men” with a different demographic group, you clearly see that the statement is not acceptable. This test doesn’t always work — sometimes there’s a long history of stereotype or power that makes statements about a demographic group much worse than the same statement about a different demographic group, but I think it’s a useful signal here.)
So it might be worth clarifying what you mean in the comment. In the future, please avoid sweeping statements about demographic groups.
Thank you Lizka. You are making a good point and I have edited the comment above to no longer refer to a specific demographic group.
I would not want anyone to get the impression that Owen’s poor behaviour is merely a strong negative update on men.
It is a strong negative update on the decency of everybody.
(Though I would expect women to show a lack of decency in slightly different ways than men.)
I still expect some decent people to exist. I just now think there are even more rare than I previously thought.
Fwiw, my read of Denise’s comment was more like “My previous impression of Owen was that he was an outstanding example of what a decent man should look like, and thus this news is especially disappointing and devastating”, rather than something like “Owen was the last decent man, and this shows that there are no decent men”.
Or: “learning of this significantly updated my assessment of the number of decent men downward, especially in EA.”
As a man, I wasn’t offended in light of the circumstances of the statement (though I don’t speak for all men).
Although I’m not endorsing the wording, the message that Owen’s behavior harmed people other than those directly involved, and eroded community trust in multiple ways, is an important message for him and others to hear.
However, I completely understand why Lizka wrote the mod comment and think it was a balanced comment.
This was also my interpretation, though I can imagine others interpreting it differently.
I would also like to clarify that I strongly disagreed (but didn’t downvote) Denise’s post strictly in response to the final paragraph, to express something like “Let’s not overreact to recent events. EA has accomplished great things and will likely recover from these setbacks. And I hope you don’t leave EA, Denise!” This strikes me as a case where the meaning of the disagree vote count is particularly opaque, so it seemed worth adding this clarification.
I appreciate Denise’s hastily written comment. As others have noted, ‘feelings’ are missing from this thread—strong feelings that many people (women) are feeling. Her reactive comment gives us a good glimpse into the harm being felt, even if it’s hyperbolic .
Lizka, this isn’t a good idea. This kind of moderation will have a chilling effect on people’s willingness to express appropriate emotions at a difficult time.
You state and consider the natural explanation for why Denise’s statement is okay (that there is no especially problematic history of using this and similar statements to oppress men). If open defense of race science and questioning of sexual abuse victims falls within acceptable discourse norms, I think Denise’s statement should fall comfortably within them too.
I’m confused about why David’s comment was downvoted into negative territory but agreevoted positively (-9 / +13 at the time I saw it). Whether or not people agree with it, it’s a valid point (and they seem to agree with it on net . . .)
I assume EAs think I’m speaking a bit sharply here? These discussions are hard because EAs often place a very high value on polite/unemotional discourse, whereas non-EAs often place a higher value on discourse that won’t cause harms to groups/people and think that sharper or more emotional discourse can sometimes be an appropriate response (or even the only appropriate response) in such cases.
Maybe the norms-controlling/moderator team could take into account the millennia-old tradition of male power (as a demographic group) over everyone else (as a demographic group), making the statement about there (not) being decent men meaningfully different from a statement about e.g. there (not) being decent women...
I’m commenting as a moderator right now.
I’m really sorry that you’re feeling this way. I think a lot of us have strong emotions about this news and don’t know how to process it. Given that you wrote “[hastily written],” I assume that this comment is helping you process the news.
At the same time, I think it’s important for us to not slip away from our norms on the Forum, which include making sure the space is welcoming to different groups of people, including men. There are a few different ways to interpret the part of your comment that’s about men. Unfortunately, I think right now it’s not clear whether you’re saying that “there are no decent men” (which would be norm-violating). (If you replace “men” with a different demographic group, you clearly see that the statement is not acceptable. This test doesn’t always work — sometimes there’s a long history of stereotype or power that makes statements about a demographic group much worse than the same statement about a different demographic group, but I think it’s a useful signal here.)
So it might be worth clarifying what you mean in the comment. In the future, please avoid sweeping statements about demographic groups.
Thank you Lizka. You are making a good point and I have edited the comment above to no longer refer to a specific demographic group.
I would not want anyone to get the impression that Owen’s poor behaviour is merely a strong negative update on men. It is a strong negative update on the decency of everybody.
(Though I would expect women to show a lack of decency in slightly different ways than men.)
I still expect some decent people to exist. I just now think there are even more rare than I previously thought.
Fwiw, my read of Denise’s comment was more like “My previous impression of Owen was that he was an outstanding example of what a decent man should look like, and thus this news is especially disappointing and devastating”, rather than something like “Owen was the last decent man, and this shows that there are no decent men”.
Or: “learning of this significantly updated my assessment of the number of decent men downward, especially in EA.”
As a man, I wasn’t offended in light of the circumstances of the statement (though I don’t speak for all men).
Although I’m not endorsing the wording, the message that Owen’s behavior harmed people other than those directly involved, and eroded community trust in multiple ways, is an important message for him and others to hear.
However, I completely understand why Lizka wrote the mod comment and think it was a balanced comment.
This was also my interpretation, though I can imagine others interpreting it differently.
I would also like to clarify that I strongly disagreed (but didn’t downvote) Denise’s post strictly in response to the final paragraph, to express something like “Let’s not overreact to recent events. EA has accomplished great things and will likely recover from these setbacks. And I hope you don’t leave EA, Denise!” This strikes me as a case where the meaning of the disagree vote count is particularly opaque, so it seemed worth adding this clarification.
I appreciate Denise’s hastily written comment. As others have noted, ‘feelings’ are missing from this thread—strong feelings that many people (women) are feeling. Her reactive comment gives us a good glimpse into the harm being felt, even if it’s hyperbolic .
Lizka, this isn’t a good idea. This kind of moderation will have a chilling effect on people’s willingness to express appropriate emotions at a difficult time.
You state and consider the natural explanation for why Denise’s statement is okay (that there is no especially problematic history of using this and similar statements to oppress men). If open defense of race science and questioning of sexual abuse victims falls within acceptable discourse norms, I think Denise’s statement should fall comfortably within them too.
I’m confused about why David’s comment was downvoted into negative territory but agreevoted positively (-9 / +13 at the time I saw it). Whether or not people agree with it, it’s a valid point (and they seem to agree with it on net . . .)
I assume EAs think I’m speaking a bit sharply here? These discussions are hard because EAs often place a very high value on polite/unemotional discourse, whereas non-EAs often place a higher value on discourse that won’t cause harms to groups/people and think that sharper or more emotional discourse can sometimes be an appropriate response (or even the only appropriate response) in such cases.
That seems fine? The chilling effect is something Mill identified as being a problem when it prevents good ideas from being shared.
Maybe the norms-controlling/moderator team could take into account the millennia-old tradition of male power (as a demographic group) over everyone else (as a demographic group), making the statement about there (not) being decent men meaningfully different from a statement about e.g. there (not) being decent women...
I think this is misguided. Seems very much like “#NotAllMen”.