The fact of the matter is that people in the EA community are prejudiced against anyone different from them and look for any justification to keep them out. Since there are no genuine justifications, it generally takes the form of instilling fear of the unknown into others, no different from any other type of bigotry: “But if we let blacks in this school, who knows what will happen! We must keep them out because, well, you just never know what horrible things may happen!”
The whole premise of the debate is prejudiced. EA’s being more accepting of people different from them (including others’ levels of commitment to EA) is “lowering the bar”? That is clearly bigoted – viewing people different from you as necessarily inferior. Of course, prejudiced people measure inferiority by how much others differ from them. I’m sure many people who are different from EA’s view EA’s as inferior.
The fact of the matter is that people in the EA community are prejudiced against anyone different from them and look for any justification to keep them out. Since there are no genuine justifications, it generally takes the form of instilling fear of the unknown into others, no different from any other type of bigotry: “But if we let blacks in this school, who knows what will happen! We must keep them out because, well, you just never know what horrible things may happen!”
The whole premise of the debate is prejudiced. EA’s being more accepting of people different from them (including others’ levels of commitment to EA) is “lowering the bar”? That is clearly bigoted – viewing people different from you as necessarily inferior. Of course, prejudiced people measure inferiority by how much others differ from them. I’m sure many people who are different from EA’s view EA’s as inferior.