If anything this post supports some of the criticism – the account in the TIME article suggests OCB was responsible for finding promising students and placing then in high-profile jobs (neither of which was the case). It makes no mention of the fact he and the accuser were seemingly already friends with an “unusually direct and honest” relationship (a statement the accuser presumably agrees with, as she’s had a chance to vet this post). And that once he learned he had overstepped he was horrified and sought to make amends.
In my mind that’s a lot of important context that was elided, and suggests an awkward misstep rather than something more sinister.
A lot of the criticism went way beyond “Time omitted some important context”. In this highly upvoted post, the OP states that:
If I could pop back in time to witness the reported interactions, I personally would think in 80% of cases that the accused had done nothing wrong
Well now we have the full picture for at least one of the accusations, and we have found out that, according to the accused:
The accuser was entirely honest in her account. They may have made a slight mistake in thinking his role of recommending people for jobs was official at the time, but Owen states that this was entirely reasonable to think. It sounds like he was already doing some of it unofficially.
The man in question did do something wrong, self-admittedly. He was attracted to this women and pushed boundaries with her in a way that made her feel pressured and uncomfortable. He was not mindful of the significant power imbalances in play that made it difficult for her to push back on unwanted behaviour.
Self-admittedly, the culture of EA played a contributing factor in Owen’s wrongdoing. This is very important, as it implies that there areas where EA could easily improve to prevent this occurring again.
While I can quibble with the flattening of context in the article, I think the testimony of the woman in question has been entirely upheld, and she should be commended for bravely speaking up on the matter.
I guess I’d just say that the missing context from the TIME article seems hugely important in understanding exactly how much of a boundary/norm violation this event was.
Not that I endorse it, but Aella’s position that in 80% of the anecdotes the accused did nothing wrong is not incompatible with this anecdote being (mostly) accurate.
Not that I endorse it, but Aella’s position that in 80% of the anecdotes the accused did nothing wrong is not incompatible with this anecdote being (mostly) accurate.
One of the other cases was banned from EA events for his behaviour, which I’ll take to mean he did something wrong. There was only like 10 incidents described. So with at least two cases of confirmed wrongdoing, and none so far in the “debunked” camp, the statement seems extremely unlikely to be true. Which is unsurprising, given that it was made with very little evidence.
Adding to your points, I think the Time article is very likely understating (I think by a significant margin) the amount of sexual harassment or otherwise unwanted male advances. For example, there was only one case about Owen in the article but he himself admits (see below quote) there were at least 4 other occasions where his actions might have been misguided / overstepped the mark.
Was this incident an isolated case? Yes and no. I think this was by some way my most egregious mistake of this type. However, in my time in EA there have been four other occasions on which I expressed feelings of attraction towards someone in a way that — in retrospect as I’ve developed a more nuanced understanding of power dynamics — I regret.
Generally, I think we can expect to see some “survivorship bias” e.g. reporters who want to uncover instances of sexual harassment might struggle because people who have faced these experiences might never engage properly with the EA community. For example, say someone new attends an EA event and faces some level of misogyny by male attendees - they will just never attend an EA event again. So of course an article about reported cases will miss a significant proportion of incidents! As a result, it is very hard to track these incidences, especially if they occur at the early stages of someone’s exposure to EA.
(There’s a whole other point about internalised patriarchy where women will just tolerate some non-negligible level of sexism and not report it or even think it’s a problem, but that’s probably another conversation).
I think there are tradeoffs here though (and I have also talked to women who like the status quo and I assume men do). It’s not clear to me that the obvious path forward is.
I think there are tradeoffs here though (and I have also talked to women who like the status quo and I assume men do).
Just flagging that this sentence made me quite uneasy. Of course when you’re talking about removing the institutional power of an oppressing group (e.g. men, white people, humans, etc.) that group will not want to lose their power or status. This doesn’t make it any less important or moral though!
An exaggerated version of this might look like “There are some trade-offs to giving black people the right to vote. Most white people enjoy our political system the way it is, so we would have to consider what they would lose as well”.
If it’s not clear, I think this is the wrong way of thinking about it. I also don’t have any obvious solutions, but I think men should be much more willing to take steps to try correct unearned social power e.g. basic reading on feminist topics, don’t talk over women (or considering how much men are speaking vs women in a group discussion), be mindful of your social power, err on the cautious side for physical touching / sexual advances, don’t be defensive when you get called out, etc.
I think Nathan was referring to the tradeoffs of the suggestion in the original proposal, which includes a loss of sex and potential relationships that all parties involved desired to have. Although I am broadly sympathetic to the original suggestion, it’s not wrong to say it would have some costs incurred by both men and women (and both men and women have spoken up here to express concern about those costs).
I was someone who upvoted Aella’s post that you are referring to, but strongly disagreed with that statement even at the time. It would be disturbing to think that all the people who upvoted the post agreed with that part! I think that statement was so extreme relative to the rest of the post that many people who upvoted it probably feel as I do.
Perhaps people who pushed back or even attacked the Time article should have some reflection?
If anything this post supports some of the criticism – the account in the TIME article suggests OCB was responsible for finding promising students and placing then in high-profile jobs (neither of which was the case). It makes no mention of the fact he and the accuser were seemingly already friends with an “unusually direct and honest” relationship (a statement the accuser presumably agrees with, as she’s had a chance to vet this post). And that once he learned he had overstepped he was horrified and sought to make amends.
In my mind that’s a lot of important context that was elided, and suggests an awkward misstep rather than something more sinister.
A lot of the criticism went way beyond “Time omitted some important context”. In this highly upvoted post, the OP states that:
Well now we have the full picture for at least one of the accusations, and we have found out that, according to the accused:
The accuser was entirely honest in her account. They may have made a slight mistake in thinking his role of recommending people for jobs was official at the time, but Owen states that this was entirely reasonable to think. It sounds like he was already doing some of it unofficially.
The man in question did do something wrong, self-admittedly. He was attracted to this women and pushed boundaries with her in a way that made her feel pressured and uncomfortable. He was not mindful of the significant power imbalances in play that made it difficult for her to push back on unwanted behaviour.
Self-admittedly, the culture of EA played a contributing factor in Owen’s wrongdoing. This is very important, as it implies that there areas where EA could easily improve to prevent this occurring again.
While I can quibble with the flattening of context in the article, I think the testimony of the woman in question has been entirely upheld, and she should be commended for bravely speaking up on the matter.
I guess I’d just say that the missing context from the TIME article seems hugely important in understanding exactly how much of a boundary/norm violation this event was.
Not that I endorse it, but Aella’s position that in 80% of the anecdotes the accused did nothing wrong is not incompatible with this anecdote being (mostly) accurate.
One of the other cases was banned from EA events for his behaviour, which I’ll take to mean he did something wrong. There was only like 10 incidents described. So with at least two cases of confirmed wrongdoing, and none so far in the “debunked” camp, the statement seems extremely unlikely to be true. Which is unsurprising, given that it was made with very little evidence.
Adding to your points, I think the Time article is very likely understating (I think by a significant margin) the amount of sexual harassment or otherwise unwanted male advances. For example, there was only one case about Owen in the article but he himself admits (see below quote) there were at least 4 other occasions where his actions might have been misguided / overstepped the mark.
Generally, I think we can expect to see some “survivorship bias” e.g. reporters who want to uncover instances of sexual harassment might struggle because people who have faced these experiences might never engage properly with the EA community. For example, say someone new attends an EA event and faces some level of misogyny by male attendees - they will just never attend an EA event again. So of course an article about reported cases will miss a significant proportion of incidents! As a result, it is very hard to track these incidences, especially if they occur at the early stages of someone’s exposure to EA.
(There’s a whole other point about internalised patriarchy where women will just tolerate some non-negligible level of sexism and not report it or even think it’s a problem, but that’s probably another conversation).
Yeah I’d bet this is true.
I think there are tradeoffs here though (and I have also talked to women who like the status quo and I assume men do). It’s not clear to me that the obvious path forward is.
Just flagging that this sentence made me quite uneasy. Of course when you’re talking about removing the institutional power of an oppressing group (e.g. men, white people, humans, etc.) that group will not want to lose their power or status. This doesn’t make it any less important or moral though!
An exaggerated version of this might look like “There are some trade-offs to giving black people the right to vote. Most white people enjoy our political system the way it is, so we would have to consider what they would lose as well”.
If it’s not clear, I think this is the wrong way of thinking about it. I also don’t have any obvious solutions, but I think men should be much more willing to take steps to try correct unearned social power e.g. basic reading on feminist topics, don’t talk over women (or considering how much men are speaking vs women in a group discussion), be mindful of your social power, err on the cautious side for physical touching / sexual advances, don’t be defensive when you get called out, etc.
I think Nathan was referring to the tradeoffs of the suggestion in the original proposal, which includes a loss of sex and potential relationships that all parties involved desired to have. Although I am broadly sympathetic to the original suggestion, it’s not wrong to say it would have some costs incurred by both men and women (and both men and women have spoken up here to express concern about those costs).
I was someone who upvoted Aella’s post that you are referring to, but strongly disagreed with that statement even at the time. It would be disturbing to think that all the people who upvoted the post agreed with that part! I think that statement was so extreme relative to the rest of the post that many people who upvoted it probably feel as I do.
The post does not say that they actually had a unusually direct and honest relationship, but merely that OCB perceived things that way at the time:
‘We had what I perceived as a preexisting friendship where we were experimenting with being unusually direct and honest (/“edgy”)’
I suppose so—without hearing the other side we can’t know for sure. He does say there was “oversharing from both sides”, though.
I reread this post, I cannot find where it says the accuser has the chance to vest this post? May be I missed it somehow?
(Followed by)
Thanks.