I somewhat agree with you. I think the specific way in which some EAs interact with other people, especially at conferences, can be very off-putting. As a community organizer myself and someone who thinks that expanding the EA community is important, I think people really should work on their communication skills and manners if we want to expand as a community. From personal experience—I am a member of a minority myself, someone who joined EA about a year ago, I am also a community organizer. 70% of my interactions with EA people have been positive, but 30% were not-so-great.
I have brought some friends interested in EA conferences and some of them did not have the most positive experience. Some of the most common complaints included people seeming argumentative and wanting to argue and check every statement another person would make. Now, while it is important to examine the line of thought of people, it can also come off as socially unacceptable. There are some things that can be challenged—but also some things that are too personal to people’s lived experiences. Being ‘socially awkward’ or introverted is not an excuse to hurt someone’s feelings or to come off as rude. If you want more people to relate to your ideas, you probably should learn how to make them relatable to them and be more open to experiences or ideas that don’t seem rational to you.
Telling someone you don’t want to waste your time on them just like that is plain rude, no possible approach or personality trait can justify this behavior. It’s really easy to say “Hey I am so sorry, I have a very tight schedule and don’t have time for any more 1-on-1s, I hope you understand!”. You can literally copy a polite sentence and respond to everyone with that if you are not interested…
Making others feel they are not important enough is literally a recipe for pushing people away from the EA movement. No one has a monopoly on the movement, even people who think they are ‘very high-up’, ‘important’, and ‘in the mentoring position’. It’s frankly very annoying that some people think they are much better than others, and other people with insecurities fuel that belief and make these people believe they are so-so important. This top-to-down approach often does not work. Most of the people who think they are so much more important than you are probably not.
I agree with you as often I have felt some weirdness from certain EAs. I think part of it comes from the fact that several of these EAs are born and raised in a context where they don’t experience much oppression and have the privilege of thinking about several issues that affect some people only theoretically. I am not a cultural leftist at all, but I do think that insensitivity to some experiences is a problem in EA at times.
That being said, it’s just one part of people in the EA who act the way you and I experienced. There are also some people who navigate social contexts better and talking with them has made my experience in the EA way more enjoyable.
Maybe some of the things that we could do as a community is have people who would train people on communications or have more workshops related to how to communicate with others in and out of the community more effectively. It is quite unbelievable that we need training on communications just to make someone from the US or Germany understand that someone who is a woman, queer, coming from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or South Asia, will probably experience things differently and their Western explain-it-all attitude would not be the most effective.
Some chaotic thoughts on this.
I somewhat agree with you. I think the specific way in which some EAs interact with other people, especially at conferences, can be very off-putting. As a community organizer myself and someone who thinks that expanding the EA community is important, I think people really should work on their communication skills and manners if we want to expand as a community. From personal experience—I am a member of a minority myself, someone who joined EA about a year ago, I am also a community organizer. 70% of my interactions with EA people have been positive, but 30% were not-so-great.
I have brought some friends interested in EA conferences and some of them did not have the most positive experience. Some of the most common complaints included people seeming argumentative and wanting to argue and check every statement another person would make. Now, while it is important to examine the line of thought of people, it can also come off as socially unacceptable. There are some things that can be challenged—but also some things that are too personal to people’s lived experiences. Being ‘socially awkward’ or introverted is not an excuse to hurt someone’s feelings or to come off as rude. If you want more people to relate to your ideas, you probably should learn how to make them relatable to them and be more open to experiences or ideas that don’t seem rational to you.
Telling someone you don’t want to waste your time on them just like that is plain rude, no possible approach or personality trait can justify this behavior. It’s really easy to say “Hey I am so sorry, I have a very tight schedule and don’t have time for any more 1-on-1s, I hope you understand!”. You can literally copy a polite sentence and respond to everyone with that if you are not interested…
Making others feel they are not important enough is literally a recipe for pushing people away from the EA movement. No one has a monopoly on the movement, even people who think they are ‘very high-up’, ‘important’, and ‘in the mentoring position’. It’s frankly very annoying that some people think they are much better than others, and other people with insecurities fuel that belief and make these people believe they are so-so important. This top-to-down approach often does not work. Most of the people who think they are so much more important than you are probably not.
I agree with you as often I have felt some weirdness from certain EAs. I think part of it comes from the fact that several of these EAs are born and raised in a context where they don’t experience much oppression and have the privilege of thinking about several issues that affect some people only theoretically. I am not a cultural leftist at all, but I do think that insensitivity to some experiences is a problem in EA at times.
That being said, it’s just one part of people in the EA who act the way you and I experienced. There are also some people who navigate social contexts better and talking with them has made my experience in the EA way more enjoyable.
Maybe some of the things that we could do as a community is have people who would train people on communications or have more workshops related to how to communicate with others in and out of the community more effectively. It is quite unbelievable that we need training on communications just to make someone from the US or Germany understand that someone who is a woman, queer, coming from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, or South Asia, will probably experience things differently and their Western explain-it-all attitude would not be the most effective.