Thank you so much for the time and energy put into this post! I have lots more to take in, but I wanted to highlight some points I took away on my first read through
In allocating collective effort to this issue, I hope we can create protective norms, practices, or processes that take care of those affected and encourage the kind of behaviors we want in the future.
One thing that seems especially noteworthy about the general framing of this post, and this statement in particular, is that it’s describing a healthier community that only needs a little extra effort from each individual. This reminded me of what I see as norms around welcoming new people to EA groups. At least in my experience, most people see the importance of tailoring conversations with new people toward their interests and avoiding unnecessary jargon. Since many people are both capable of having this type of conversation and recognize its importance, there are many people that feel license to make this person more comfortable, and no individual has to be the one to do it on a given day. There are also tons of people that developed introductory curricula to be even more welcoming to new people, and train group leaders to do a better job of this in their individual groups. It seems like applying a similar level of care to sexual misconduct reinforces your concrete points of how we could get to this healthier community: treating each individual with compassion and putting in the time to think about how to do this better.
Another example of norms that feels in the right direction is how the EA community addresses burnout. EA seems to stigmatize driving people to burnout a lot more than other groups I’ve been apart of. This also gives me hope that EAs could realistically handle situations like the ones described in this post better than other communities. This feeling especially resonated with the final line in the post
We’re a community based in altruism, in being generous and caring about the well-being of all people. We should take responsibility for the harm people experience in this community and take responsibility for preventing it when we can. Especially where we can do more, we shouldn’t let the survivors of misconduct among us shoulder the burden of improving things.
Thank you so much for the time and energy put into this post! I have lots more to take in, but I wanted to highlight some points I took away on my first read through
One thing that seems especially noteworthy about the general framing of this post, and this statement in particular, is that it’s describing a healthier community that only needs a little extra effort from each individual. This reminded me of what I see as norms around welcoming new people to EA groups. At least in my experience, most people see the importance of tailoring conversations with new people toward their interests and avoiding unnecessary jargon. Since many people are both capable of having this type of conversation and recognize its importance, there are many people that feel license to make this person more comfortable, and no individual has to be the one to do it on a given day. There are also tons of people that developed introductory curricula to be even more welcoming to new people, and train group leaders to do a better job of this in their individual groups. It seems like applying a similar level of care to sexual misconduct reinforces your concrete points of how we could get to this healthier community: treating each individual with compassion and putting in the time to think about how to do this better.
Another example of norms that feels in the right direction is how the EA community addresses burnout. EA seems to stigmatize driving people to burnout a lot more than other groups I’ve been apart of. This also gives me hope that EAs could realistically handle situations like the ones described in this post better than other communities. This feeling especially resonated with the final line in the post