What do you think of my suggestion that it should instead be “don’t initiate or escalate”? Feels like that removes most of the harm while leaving most of the benefit.
Would it leave most of the benefit? If men (the gender who, at this point in time, initiates the most) stop initiating, I imagine a number of good relationships will not be born at all.
As has been discussed quite commonly elsewhere on this topic, the goal of the effective altruism movement is to improve the world. Not to make effective altruists happy or get them laid/married etc.
Yes relationships can be good and help build social ties, but OP clearly isn’t saying people shouldn’t date at all, just that they shouldn’t casually date. I think a trade off of less relationships on the margin for less sexual harassment assault and more women In EA is a fine trade off to make.
On top of this it’s not healthy to have your entire social support system within EA, and this will help prevent that too.
You’re reading more into my comment than I intended. I don’t disagree with you—I was just correcting what I believed to be a wrong deduction. If we try to create new norms, it’s good to make sure that we have accurate trade-offs in mind.
Currently in the poll comment I did, the balance of people think we should adopt the Original Poster’s suggestion. Mine would still allow for a lot of sexual activity to take place. It is clearly less limiting. It’s still a massive norm and I don’t love it, but it’s better than a ban. It feels unfair (and plain mistaken) that many people disagreed with my comment and then agree with your criticism even though my proposal is less onerous than OP’s.
If you all hate my idea surely you must hate OP’s more, so go disagreevote with it in the poll comment below.
If somehow you like OPs suggestion but hate mine, I’m confused.
Do you think people might simply not have seen your poll? (and don’t understand that by “my suggestion” you’re referring to an actual poll). We’re replying to what is currently the top comment, that might give our comments more visibility.
I’ll signal-boost your poll in my comment above—even if to be clear I disagree with both the poster’s and your suggestions.
Edit: can’t find the actual comment in which you have this particular poll, if you share the link with me I’m happy to add it to comment above
I disagreed with your comment (despite obviously agreeing with my own post), so let me explain why. First (as I describe here), I think your proposal may actually increase uncomfortability and awkwardness, which is what the post was largely written to address. Second (as I described to Jeff here), I think dating within EA doesn’t necessarily involve the issues I’m concerned with, and I think your proposal would decrease dating within EA more than mine would. Third, I think your proposal would involve spending weirdness points, while mine would involve saving weirdness points.
Also, for clarity’s sake to address the comment “it’s better than a ban”, I’m not proposing an externally imposed ban. I think an explicit ban would be harmful and I do not endorse one.
I think this is the sort of thing that might make sense in the abstract, but that in practice would probably lead to more awkwardness and uncomfortability for many people. Imagine if you’re used to being the person on the receptive end instead of the initiating end. In that case, you may find it uncomfortable to initiate and escalate. But your system may involve this person making the move at every single step. They’d have to be the first to flirt, to ask the other person out, to go for the first kiss, and so on. This feels like it could be compounding uncomfortability for a lot of people who aren’t used to making those sort of moves. I also think asking people to take on roles they’re not used to filling would increase the amount of missed signals, which would increase awkwardness. There might also be confusion about which party should be in which role (what if there’s a higher-status woman and a lower-status man, or if there’s two people who are socially clumsy in different ways).
I think those who like this idea are suggesting a huge and powerful norm. And my pretty huge and pretty powerful norm is being rejected because it would be “awkward and uncomfortable”. I think that misses the point that the original norm is even worse. Again, I sense that a poll of women in EA might reveal that even if we only consider their preferences they aren’t pro “non-neurotypical and high status men in the community cannot have casual sex”. But that’s a guess I could be wrong.
For clarity’s sake, I don’t think “socially clumsy” and “non-neurotypical” are identical. There are plenty of neurotypical people who are socially clumsy, and there are also some non-neurotypical people who are not socially clumsy. People also often change in their social clumsiness (typically from clumsy to not clumsy), and it can depend on context (perhaps two people who are socially clumsy in a similar way would actually find each other to be less socially clumsy). I won’t pretend there’s no correlation to neurotypicality, but I just thought I’d clarify this in case anyone thought I was trying to dog whistle.
Also “cannot have casual sex” is stronger than what I think. I don’t think there should be an explicit ban. I do think people should at least consider the negatives and possibly choose personally to avoid it. I’m somewhat uncertain about my views on a softer norm and I think that may depends more on the specifics.
What do you think of my suggestion that it should instead be “don’t initiate or escalate”? Feels like that removes most of the harm while leaving most of the benefit.
Would it leave most of the benefit? If men (the gender who, at this point in time, initiates the most) stop initiating, I imagine a number of good relationships will not be born at all.
As has been discussed quite commonly elsewhere on this topic, the goal of the effective altruism movement is to improve the world. Not to make effective altruists happy or get them laid/married etc.
Yes relationships can be good and help build social ties, but OP clearly isn’t saying people shouldn’t date at all, just that they shouldn’t casually date. I think a trade off of less relationships on the margin for less sexual harassment assault and more women In EA is a fine trade off to make.
On top of this it’s not healthy to have your entire social support system within EA, and this will help prevent that too.
You’re reading more into my comment than I intended. I don’t disagree with you—I was just correcting what I believed to be a wrong deduction. If we try to create new norms, it’s good to make sure that we have accurate trade-offs in mind.
I feel the upvotes here are very unfair.
Currently in the poll comment I did, the balance of people think we should adopt the Original Poster’s suggestion. Mine would still allow for a lot of sexual activity to take place. It is clearly less limiting. It’s still a massive norm and I don’t love it, but it’s better than a ban. It feels unfair (and plain mistaken) that many people disagreed with my comment and then agree with your criticism even though my proposal is less onerous than OP’s.
If you all hate my idea surely you must hate OP’s more, so go disagreevote with it in the poll comment below.
If somehow you like OPs suggestion but hate mine, I’m confused.
Do you think people might simply not have seen your poll? (and don’t understand that by “my suggestion” you’re referring to an actual poll). We’re replying to what is currently the top comment, that might give our comments more visibility.
I’ll signal-boost your poll in my comment above—even if to be clear I disagree with both the poster’s and your suggestions.
Edit: can’t find the actual comment in which you have this particular poll, if you share the link with me I’m happy to add it to comment above
Oh that’s because Jeff and I were talking before everyone else turned up
I disagreed with your comment (despite obviously agreeing with my own post), so let me explain why. First (as I describe here), I think your proposal may actually increase uncomfortability and awkwardness, which is what the post was largely written to address. Second (as I described to Jeff here), I think dating within EA doesn’t necessarily involve the issues I’m concerned with, and I think your proposal would decrease dating within EA more than mine would. Third, I think your proposal would involve spending weirdness points, while mine would involve saving weirdness points.
Also, for clarity’s sake to address the comment “it’s better than a ban”, I’m not proposing an externally imposed ban. I think an explicit ban would be harmful and I do not endorse one.
I think this is the sort of thing that might make sense in the abstract, but that in practice would probably lead to more awkwardness and uncomfortability for many people. Imagine if you’re used to being the person on the receptive end instead of the initiating end. In that case, you may find it uncomfortable to initiate and escalate. But your system may involve this person making the move at every single step. They’d have to be the first to flirt, to ask the other person out, to go for the first kiss, and so on. This feels like it could be compounding uncomfortability for a lot of people who aren’t used to making those sort of moves. I also think asking people to take on roles they’re not used to filling would increase the amount of missed signals, which would increase awkwardness. There might also be confusion about which party should be in which role (what if there’s a higher-status woman and a lower-status man, or if there’s two people who are socially clumsy in different ways).
I feel frustrated. Sign.
I think those who like this idea are suggesting a huge and powerful norm. And my pretty huge and pretty powerful norm is being rejected because it would be “awkward and uncomfortable”. I think that misses the point that the original norm is even worse. Again, I sense that a poll of women in EA might reveal that even if we only consider their preferences they aren’t pro “non-neurotypical and high status men in the community cannot have casual sex”. But that’s a guess I could be wrong.
For clarity’s sake, I don’t think “socially clumsy” and “non-neurotypical” are identical. There are plenty of neurotypical people who are socially clumsy, and there are also some non-neurotypical people who are not socially clumsy. People also often change in their social clumsiness (typically from clumsy to not clumsy), and it can depend on context (perhaps two people who are socially clumsy in a similar way would actually find each other to be less socially clumsy). I won’t pretend there’s no correlation to neurotypicality, but I just thought I’d clarify this in case anyone thought I was trying to dog whistle.
Also “cannot have casual sex” is stronger than what I think. I don’t think there should be an explicit ban. I do think people should at least consider the negatives and possibly choose personally to avoid it. I’m somewhat uncertain about my views on a softer norm and I think that may depends more on the specifics.