Reading your comments on that post, it sounds like you were hoping readers would respond to your post by making things happen. That’s occasionally the way things go, but almost always if you want to move something along you need to drive it. For example, if you think this is possibly one of the most important things to do you could consider:
Seeking funding to work on this full-time. With your full time work you could learn how to run a simulation, or attempt to convince the government to run one. You could also explore related hurricane prevention proposals (for example, Myhrvold’s proposal) .
Seeking funding to hire someone to work on this full-time (but if you aren’t willing to do it I expect funders to consider that a negative signal)
Actively looking for collaborators, for example by attempting to identify relevant academics
Just to note for the next person: I am now being called “powerless and vulnerable” because I stand against being mis-represented. I have been mis-represented repeatedly, and so I have responded to each—yet, the fact that I “repeatedly post (complaints about being misrepresented)… makes sure that not many people take (me) seriously.” If your clique repeatedly mis-represents me, and then they use my own self-defense as a reason to justify exclusion, you’ve earned the title of clique!
I’m going to be honest. I think you’d have a better experience here if you engaged with people in a way that was less adversarial. I can understand why you might be frustrated that people didn’t engage more with your ideas or that people misinterpreted what you wrote, but it seems to me that you’re currently in a cycle where you felt you were mistreated or ignored which leads you to send out negative energy which then results in further negative interactions; and hence the cycle continues.
For some reason, my original response is not showing up. I definitely did NOT make any attack on anyone, during my comment. I don’t see why it would be deleted—I request a review of whoever deleted my response. Here it is, again:
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
Further, again, I am not talking about “lack of engagaement”—ONLY your people have made that claim, and I dismiss it each time you’ve made it. I continue to point-out: I have been repeatedly misrepresented. I deserve an apology.
More to the point: why is my tone the more pressing issue, compared to the fact that I’ve been repeatedly misrepresented? Your Us/Them priorities are showing.
I think the biggest reason why your tone is relevant here is that you are seeking introductions to potential collaborators. People care a lot about what others are like to work with!
I agree! So, consider the scenario: I stand-up and ask “does anyone know someone I might talk to?” and the response I get is “but we don’t want to give you money”. I correct that misrepresentation, repeatedly, until I suspect that I am being trolled—and my self-defense is used as a reason to ignore me. If I hadn’t been poked-in-the-eye repeatedly, those introductions would begin on a pleasant footing.
Core to this problem: each of you are focusing on how I can “get better results by playing nice”. I am focusing on “I was misrepresented, and that should be considered first, in the moral calculus.” If I roll-over every time someone bullies me, then I’ll be liked by a whole lot of bullies. That doesn’t sound like a win, to me.
I honestly think this is the one thing I could have said that could have helped you achieve your goals the most, more than offering a connection to a relevant person, if I actually knew someone interested in hurricane prevention.
I suppose what you’re saying makes sense from where you stand. I guess I’m trying to show you another way of seeing the world, even though I know it won’t make sense from your perspective. I’d encourage you to imagine briefly what it would mean for this to be true, to explore what the world looks like through this lens, and its internal logic. I suspect that this exercise could be valuable even if you don’t end up agreeing with this perspective.
When did you edit your response? You were saying something else, originally...
Yes, I can imagine the world where I respond to the misrepresentations with politeness—I did that for twenty years, and the misrepresentations continued, along with so many other forms of bullying. I have seen the world from that lens, and I learned that it’s better for me to stand-up to misrepresentations, even if that means the bully doesn’t like me.
Maybe I should have been clearer. I’m asking you to imagine the world where everyone isn’t intrinsically against you, they’ve tried to help and they’ve been pushed away. I know that’s a difficult ask, but I suspect it would be worthwhile.
Strong downvote for extreme and inappropriate condescension in the guise of helping someone. There is no adequate reason for you to assume that Anthony is living in a world where everyone is intrinsically against him, and that he cannot even imagine not living in a different world. This is an extremely strong statement to make about someone you know through a few online comments. Why do you think you’re right?
Even if you were right, helping him would not take the form of trying to point this out publicly in such a tactless way.
I can see why you might think it’s a guise, but it really isn’t the case. I think you’re correct that it does come off as slightly condescending, but this isn’t intentional. I’m trying to expand the range of what I can say without coming off as condescending, but for there are some things where I find it challenging; where it feels to me like trying to thread a needle. In any case, your comment contains useful feedback.
I just want to make it clear that it’s a genuine attempt to say the most helpful thing that I can, even if I think it only has a small chance of making a difference, but I agree that a private message might have been better. As for why I think this what I think, it’s mostly based on my experience of dealing with people. I could produce some explicit reasons if I really wanted to, but I’m not sure if it’s worthwhile given that they are more the sideshow than anything.
Thanks, this is a good followup. I’m glad my comment contained useful feedback for you.
I think your attempt to help Anthony went awry when he asked you why his tone was the bigger issue than whether he had been misrepresented, and you did not even seem to consider that he could be right in your reply. Perhaps he is right? Perhaps not? But it’s important to at least genuinely consider that he could be.
Thank you for recognizing that my concern was not addressed. I should mention, I am also not operating from an assumption of ‘intrinsically against me’ - it’s an unusually specific reaction that I’ve received on this forum, in particular. So, I’m glad that you have spoken-up in favor of due consideration. My stomach knots thank you :)
I don’t feel good about this situation, but I think your judgement is really different than most reads of what happened:
It’s clear to me that there’s someone who isn’t communicating or creating beliefs in a way that would be workable. Chris Leong’s comments seem objectively correct (if not likely to be useful).
(While committing this sin with this comment itself) It’s clearly better to walk away and leave them alone than risk stirring up another round of issues.
My comment very well may not be useful. I think there’s value in experimenting with different ways of engaging with people. I think it is possible to have these kind of conversations but I don’t think that I’ve quite managed to figure out how to do that yet.
I think the person involved is either having a specific negative personal incident, or revealing latent personality traits that suggest the situation is much less promising and below a reasonable bar for skilled intervention in a conversation.
With an willingness to be wrong and ignore norms, I think I could elaborate or make informative comments (maybe relevant of trust, scaling and dilution that seem to be major topics right now?). But it feels distasteful and inhumane to do this to one individual who is not an EA.
(I think EAs can and should endure much more, directly and publicly, and this seems like it would address would be problems with trust and scaling).
It seems someone is deleting my posts, when I have not said anything in those posts except my own self-defense and what has been done to me. Here it is, again:
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
Thank you for the clarification. It’s still worrisome that a subset, by downvoting, can ensure that my correction of their misrepresentation goes un-noticed, while their misrepresentation of me stands in full view. There was another post on the Forum, recently, talking about how outsiders worry that EA is a cult or a clique—I hope you can see where that concern is coming from, when my self-defense is downvoted to obscurity, while the misrepresentations stand.
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
I am not looking for funding—I asked if anyone is interested in running those simulations, or knows someone they could put me in touch with.
I quote from my post directly above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
I’m appalled that multiple times, here now and when I posted originally, after stating that I am NOT seeking funding, I am repeatedly misrepresented as “seeking funding”. It’s a basic respect to read what I actually wrote.
Included in my hope for connections are the relevant academics—I began my search at the EA Berkeley campus chapter. I know that the government would not listen to me without at least a first-pass simulation of my own; and I know that it is ludicrous for me to invest time into developing a skill that others possess, or re-inventing the wheel by making my own simulation. Those are all significantly more wasteful and ineffectual than asking people if they know anyone in related fields—this is because social networks are dense graphs, so only two or three steps away, I am likely to find an appropriate specialist. Your advice is not appropriate.
At no point did I ask the readers to do the work of simulation, or proposing to the government, on my behalf; you used a strawman against me. I am specifically asking if people can look in their social network for anyone with relevant skill-sets, who I might talk to—those skilled folks are the place where I’m likely to find someone who would actually do work, not here on the forums with a string of dismissive ‘help’ and fallacies.
I can think of two main reasons why your posts haven’t resulted in introductions to relevant specialists:
People with those connections haven’t seen your posts.
While such people have seen your posts they don’t consider this opportunity sufficiently promising to pass it on.
While many people do read the Forum it wouldn’t be surprising if no one had seen your post who knew anyone relevant, since there aren’t that many relevant experts. And even if they are, when you give someone an introduction you are staking some of your social capital, and based on your initial post and comments here I would not, personally, be willing to stake such capital.
I had seen that you’d written that you weren’t looking for funding, and my post above doesn’t suggest that you were. Instead, I was suggesting that you do and giving ideas on how you might use funding to make progress on this project. After reading your responses here, however, I withdraw that suggestion.
I apologize for lumping your funding-suggestion along-side others’ funding-misrepresentation. I see that you are looking for ways to make it possible, and funding is what came to mind. Thank you.
(I am still surprised that funding is continually the first topic, after I specify that the government is the best institution to finance such a project. EA would go bankrupt, if they tried to stop hurricanes...)
And, I understand if people don’t consider my proposal promising—I am not demanding that they divert resources, especially funds which are best spent on highest guaranteed impact! Yet, there is a cliquishness in excluding diverse dialogue based upon “social capital/reputation”—I hope you can see that the social graph’s connectivity falls apart when we cut those ties.
It’s also odd that the only data-point used to evaluate me would be the slice of time immediately after I’d been prodded repeatedly. I wish I could hand you the video-tapes of my life, and let you evaluate me rightly. When I am repeatedly misrepresented, defending myself, then you don’t see a representative slice of who I am.
Worst of all, no measure of my persona or character is a measure of the worth of a thought. If I am not a good fit for making it happen, then the best I can do I find someone who fits that well. The idea itself stands or falls on its own merits, and measuring me ignores that. I won’t know if it’s worth doing until I have a simulation, at least. I don’t know how anyone else has certainty on the matter, especially from such a noisy proxy as “perceived tone via text message”.
I am still surprised that funding is continually the first topic, after I specify that the government is the best institution to finance such a project. EA would go bankrupt, if they tried to stop hurricanes...
The reason I brought up funding was not that I thought it might make sense for EAs to fund the entire thing, but that it might allow you to address the reasons your proposal is currently stalled. I gave a few ideas of specific things you might do with funding:
Free up your time to learn how to run a simulation.
Yes, I understand that funding can let me hire people to do that work—and I don’t need funding to free my time. I understand that, if I delay for the sake of doing-it-alone, then I am responsible for that additional harm. It doesn’t make sense for me to run a simulation or lobby by myself; and I’ve been in the position of hiring people, as well as working with people who are internally motivated. I hoped to find the internally motivated people, first—that’s why I asked EA for connections, instead of just posting something on a job site.
You’re referring to Seeking a Collaboration to Stop Hurricanes, right?
Reading your comments on that post, it sounds like you were hoping readers would respond to your post by making things happen. That’s occasionally the way things go, but almost always if you want to move something along you need to drive it. For example, if you think this is possibly one of the most important things to do you could consider:
Seeking funding to work on this full-time. With your full time work you could learn how to run a simulation, or attempt to convince the government to run one. You could also explore related hurricane prevention proposals (for example, Myhrvold’s proposal) .
Seeking funding to hire someone to work on this full-time (but if you aren’t willing to do it I expect funders to consider that a negative signal)
Actively looking for collaborators, for example by attempting to identify relevant academics
Just to note for the next person: I am now being called “powerless and vulnerable” because I stand against being mis-represented. I have been mis-represented repeatedly, and so I have responded to each—yet, the fact that I “repeatedly post (complaints about being misrepresented)… makes sure that not many people take (me) seriously.” If your clique repeatedly mis-represents me, and then they use my own self-defense as a reason to justify exclusion, you’ve earned the title of clique!
I’m going to be honest. I think you’d have a better experience here if you engaged with people in a way that was less adversarial. I can understand why you might be frustrated that people didn’t engage more with your ideas or that people misinterpreted what you wrote, but it seems to me that you’re currently in a cycle where you felt you were mistreated or ignored which leads you to send out negative energy which then results in further negative interactions; and hence the cycle continues.
For some reason, my original response is not showing up. I definitely did NOT make any attack on anyone, during my comment. I don’t see why it would be deleted—I request a review of whoever deleted my response. Here it is, again:
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
Further, again, I am not talking about “lack of engagaement”—ONLY your people have made that claim, and I dismiss it each time you’ve made it. I continue to point-out: I have been repeatedly misrepresented. I deserve an apology.
More to the point: why is my tone the more pressing issue, compared to the fact that I’ve been repeatedly misrepresented? Your Us/Them priorities are showing.
I think the biggest reason why your tone is relevant here is that you are seeking introductions to potential collaborators. People care a lot about what others are like to work with!
I agree! So, consider the scenario: I stand-up and ask “does anyone know someone I might talk to?” and the response I get is “but we don’t want to give you money”. I correct that misrepresentation, repeatedly, until I suspect that I am being trolled—and my self-defense is used as a reason to ignore me. If I hadn’t been poked-in-the-eye repeatedly, those introductions would begin on a pleasant footing.
Core to this problem: each of you are focusing on how I can “get better results by playing nice”. I am focusing on “I was misrepresented, and that should be considered first, in the moral calculus.” If I roll-over every time someone bullies me, then I’ll be liked by a whole lot of bullies. That doesn’t sound like a win, to me.
I honestly think this is the one thing I could have said that could have helped you achieve your goals the most, more than offering a connection to a relevant person, if I actually knew someone interested in hurricane prevention.
I suppose what you’re saying makes sense from where you stand. I guess I’m trying to show you another way of seeing the world, even though I know it won’t make sense from your perspective. I’d encourage you to imagine briefly what it would mean for this to be true, to explore what the world looks like through this lens, and its internal logic. I suspect that this exercise could be valuable even if you don’t end up agreeing with this perspective.
When did you edit your response? You were saying something else, originally...
Yes, I can imagine the world where I respond to the misrepresentations with politeness—I did that for twenty years, and the misrepresentations continued, along with so many other forms of bullying. I have seen the world from that lens, and I learned that it’s better for me to stand-up to misrepresentations, even if that means the bully doesn’t like me.
I have no idea if I edited it or not. I tried checking to see if they had a history feature, but apparently not.
Maybe I should have been clearer. I’m asking you to imagine the world where everyone isn’t intrinsically against you, they’ve tried to help and they’ve been pushed away. I know that’s a difficult ask, but I suspect it would be worthwhile.
Strong downvote for extreme and inappropriate condescension in the guise of helping someone. There is no adequate reason for you to assume that Anthony is living in a world where everyone is intrinsically against him, and that he cannot even imagine not living in a different world. This is an extremely strong statement to make about someone you know through a few online comments. Why do you think you’re right?
Even if you were right, helping him would not take the form of trying to point this out publicly in such a tactless way.
I can see why you might think it’s a guise, but it really isn’t the case. I think you’re correct that it does come off as slightly condescending, but this isn’t intentional. I’m trying to expand the range of what I can say without coming off as condescending, but for there are some things where I find it challenging; where it feels to me like trying to thread a needle. In any case, your comment contains useful feedback.
I just want to make it clear that it’s a genuine attempt to say the most helpful thing that I can, even if I think it only has a small chance of making a difference, but I agree that a private message might have been better. As for why I think this what I think, it’s mostly based on my experience of dealing with people. I could produce some explicit reasons if I really wanted to, but I’m not sure if it’s worthwhile given that they are more the sideshow than anything.
Thanks, this is a good followup. I’m glad my comment contained useful feedback for you.
I think your attempt to help Anthony went awry when he asked you why his tone was the bigger issue than whether he had been misrepresented, and you did not even seem to consider that he could be right in your reply. Perhaps he is right? Perhaps not? But it’s important to at least genuinely consider that he could be.
Thank you for recognizing that my concern was not addressed. I should mention, I am also not operating from an assumption of ‘intrinsically against me’ - it’s an unusually specific reaction that I’ve received on this forum, in particular. So, I’m glad that you have spoken-up in favor of due consideration. My stomach knots thank you :)
I don’t feel good about this situation, but I think your judgement is really different than most reads of what happened:
It’s clear to me that there’s someone who isn’t communicating or creating beliefs in a way that would be workable. Chris Leong’s comments seem objectively correct (if not likely to be useful).
(While committing this sin with this comment itself) It’s clearly better to walk away and leave them alone than risk stirring up another round of issues.
My comment very well may not be useful. I think there’s value in experimenting with different ways of engaging with people. I think it is possible to have these kind of conversations but I don’t think that I’ve quite managed to figure out how to do that yet.
I think the person involved is either having a specific negative personal incident, or revealing latent personality traits that suggest the situation is much less promising and below a reasonable bar for skilled intervention in a conversation.
With an willingness to be wrong and ignore norms, I think I could elaborate or make informative comments (maybe relevant of trust, scaling and dilution that seem to be major topics right now?). But it feels distasteful and inhumane to do this to one individual who is not an EA.
(I think EAs can and should endure much more, directly and publicly, and this seems like it would address would be problems with trust and scaling).
That’s useful feedback. I agree that it would have been better for me to engage with that more.
Glad to have been helpful :)
It seems someone is deleting my posts, when I have not said anything in those posts except my own self-defense and what has been done to me. Here it is, again:
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
I still see that comment at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cfdnJ3sDbCSkShiSZ/ea-and-the-current-funding-situation?commentId=6NRE6vxA5rhAC8cQP
I think it’s showing up as collapsed by default because it has been heavily downvoted?
Thank you for letting me know.
Thank you for the clarification. It’s still worrisome that a subset, by downvoting, can ensure that my correction of their misrepresentation goes un-noticed, while their misrepresentation of me stands in full view. There was another post on the Forum, recently, talking about how outsiders worry that EA is a cult or a clique—I hope you can see where that concern is coming from, when my self-defense is downvoted to obscurity, while the misrepresentations stand.
I am waiting for an apology from them—I don’t know why I should be pleasant after repeatedly being disrespected. That sounds like you’re asking me to “be a good little girl, and let them be mean to you, because if you’re good enough, then they’ll start to be nice.” It’s not a fault upon me that I should ‘be nice until they like me’ - they misrepresented me, which is the issue, NOT “lack of engagement”.
“We rich white people would give you so much more respect if you poor black people spoke nicely when you complained.” <--- this argument has been used a thousand times, around the world, to get people to cower while you continue to disrespect them. I won’t cower; I am right to be upset, and I expect an apology for being misrepresented by them. I am not wrong for requesting this.
I am not looking for funding—I asked if anyone is interested in running those simulations, or knows someone they could put me in touch with.
I quote from my post directly above: “I’m NOT looking for any funding, either—there’s a decent chance that the cost of the solution is lower than the Federal Government’s increased tax-revenue from hurricane-prevention, so I say that the government should pay for it.”
I’m appalled that multiple times, here now and when I posted originally, after stating that I am NOT seeking funding, I am repeatedly misrepresented as “seeking funding”. It’s a basic respect to read what I actually wrote.
Included in my hope for connections are the relevant academics—I began my search at the EA Berkeley campus chapter. I know that the government would not listen to me without at least a first-pass simulation of my own; and I know that it is ludicrous for me to invest time into developing a skill that others possess, or re-inventing the wheel by making my own simulation. Those are all significantly more wasteful and ineffectual than asking people if they know anyone in related fields—this is because social networks are dense graphs, so only two or three steps away, I am likely to find an appropriate specialist. Your advice is not appropriate.
At no point did I ask the readers to do the work of simulation, or proposing to the government, on my behalf; you used a strawman against me. I am specifically asking if people can look in their social network for anyone with relevant skill-sets, who I might talk to—those skilled folks are the place where I’m likely to find someone who would actually do work, not here on the forums with a string of dismissive ‘help’ and fallacies.
I can think of two main reasons why your posts haven’t resulted in introductions to relevant specialists:
People with those connections haven’t seen your posts.
While such people have seen your posts they don’t consider this opportunity sufficiently promising to pass it on.
While many people do read the Forum it wouldn’t be surprising if no one had seen your post who knew anyone relevant, since there aren’t that many relevant experts. And even if they are, when you give someone an introduction you are staking some of your social capital, and based on your initial post and comments here I would not, personally, be willing to stake such capital.
I had seen that you’d written that you weren’t looking for funding, and my post above doesn’t suggest that you were. Instead, I was suggesting that you do and giving ideas on how you might use funding to make progress on this project. After reading your responses here, however, I withdraw that suggestion.
I apologize for lumping your funding-suggestion along-side others’ funding-misrepresentation. I see that you are looking for ways to make it possible, and funding is what came to mind. Thank you.
(I am still surprised that funding is continually the first topic, after I specify that the government is the best institution to finance such a project. EA would go bankrupt, if they tried to stop hurricanes...)
And, I understand if people don’t consider my proposal promising—I am not demanding that they divert resources, especially funds which are best spent on highest guaranteed impact! Yet, there is a cliquishness in excluding diverse dialogue based upon “social capital/reputation”—I hope you can see that the social graph’s connectivity falls apart when we cut those ties.
It’s also odd that the only data-point used to evaluate me would be the slice of time immediately after I’d been prodded repeatedly. I wish I could hand you the video-tapes of my life, and let you evaluate me rightly. When I am repeatedly misrepresented, defending myself, then you don’t see a representative slice of who I am.
Worst of all, no measure of my persona or character is a measure of the worth of a thought. If I am not a good fit for making it happen, then the best I can do I find someone who fits that well. The idea itself stands or falls on its own merits, and measuring me ignores that. I won’t know if it’s worth doing until I have a simulation, at least. I don’t know how anyone else has certainty on the matter, especially from such a noisy proxy as “perceived tone via text message”.
The reason I brought up funding was not that I thought it might make sense for EAs to fund the entire thing, but that it might allow you to address the reasons your proposal is currently stalled. I gave a few ideas of specific things you might do with funding:
Free up your time to learn how to run a simulation.
Free up your time to for lobbying.
Exploring existing work on hurricane prevention.
Hiring someone else to do any of the above.
Yes, I understand that funding can let me hire people to do that work—and I don’t need funding to free my time. I understand that, if I delay for the sake of doing-it-alone, then I am responsible for that additional harm. It doesn’t make sense for me to run a simulation or lobby by myself; and I’ve been in the position of hiring people, as well as working with people who are internally motivated. I hoped to find the internally motivated people, first—that’s why I asked EA for connections, instead of just posting something on a job site.