Thank you for your contributions Lauren and Bruce.
Personally I get a lot out of being able to have these conversations with anyone no matter how high their status is in EA, as long as we don’t have a specific workplace relationship with a large power differential. For example, the man I’m referring to was one of the top people at an EA organization I wanted very much to work at at the time, but if I already worked there and it happened at work or in a private environment (this was a group conversation), I would have felt uncomfortable.
If I wasn’t allowed to have unique conversations that mention sex/romance with higher status EAs anymore, I wouldn’t be able to have them at all at the moment, because I am in a very early stage of my career (I’m an undergraduate) and all my close friends are EAs. Not centering my social life around EA would be a very large sacrifice I am unwilling to make. However, Will’s post Lauren referred to seems like it might be a good compromise. I don’t personally sleep around, but it appears to be something easier to enjoy with less unique people than edgy conversations are.
I also think reducing global poverty and x-risks is so important that I would be willing to make a lot of sacrifices if it made a big difference to these causes. I’m already planning to donate most of my income to charity starting within a few years of graduation. Surely if my personal enjoyment is the only thing at stake, I can dramatically reduce the edgy conversations I have about sex with my friends. I’m only advocating for us to compromise to the extent that I think this is about broader epistemic quality within the movement.
I should clarify how I interpreted the example in the Time article I’m comparing my experience to, as people have different interpretations of the example they gave. I think I would have experienced it as an edgy conversation that involved bad wording that happened to have a large power differential, but didn’t involve pressure to engage in a relationship. This is because if the man in the Time article had done something concrete that would make someone with my personality feel pressured to be in a relationship with him like ask her on a date, I think the article would have mentioned it. Instead it referred to her feelings, which I think we are learning depend a lot on people’s personalities as well as objective facts. I am open to it just being bad writing and actually referring to something different than my experience though.
Thank you for your contributions Lauren and Bruce.
Personally I get a lot out of being able to have these conversations with anyone no matter how high their status is in EA, as long as we don’t have a specific workplace relationship with a large power differential. For example, the man I’m referring to was one of the top people at an EA organization I wanted very much to work at at the time, but if I already worked there and it happened at work or in a private environment (this was a group conversation), I would have felt uncomfortable.
If I wasn’t allowed to have unique conversations that mention sex/romance with higher status EAs anymore, I wouldn’t be able to have them at all at the moment, because I am in a very early stage of my career (I’m an undergraduate) and all my close friends are EAs. Not centering my social life around EA would be a very large sacrifice I am unwilling to make. However, Will’s post Lauren referred to seems like it might be a good compromise. I don’t personally sleep around, but it appears to be something easier to enjoy with less unique people than edgy conversations are.
I also think reducing global poverty and x-risks is so important that I would be willing to make a lot of sacrifices if it made a big difference to these causes. I’m already planning to donate most of my income to charity starting within a few years of graduation. Surely if my personal enjoyment is the only thing at stake, I can dramatically reduce the edgy conversations I have about sex with my friends. I’m only advocating for us to compromise to the extent that I think this is about broader epistemic quality within the movement.
I should clarify how I interpreted the example in the Time article I’m comparing my experience to, as people have different interpretations of the example they gave. I think I would have experienced it as an edgy conversation that involved bad wording that happened to have a large power differential, but didn’t involve pressure to engage in a relationship. This is because if the man in the Time article had done something concrete that would make someone with my personality feel pressured to be in a relationship with him like ask her on a date, I think the article would have mentioned it. Instead it referred to her feelings, which I think we are learning depend a lot on people’s personalities as well as objective facts. I am open to it just being bad writing and actually referring to something different than my experience though.