One more reason in favour of following most social norms is that breaking certain norms risks attracting people who enjoy breaking social norms for the wrong reasons, which can have a snowball effect on a community.
As an example, if a community likes to make edgy misogynistic jokes, you will attract people who enjoy being edgy and misogynistic, and drive away women and people who don’t like edgy humour. This shifts the community norms towards edginess, making it more likely for more and worse misogynistic jokes to be made, that drive off kinder people, etc. This edgy death spiral can end up with an entire community full of full-on misogynists. In my many years on the internet, I have seen this kind of pattern play out over and over again in different communities.
If we want EA to be kind, empathetic, and truthful (As I obviously do), then we need to act in ways that are kind, empathetic and truthful, and hold ourselves and our leaders to those standards.
One more reason in favour of following most social norms is that breaking certain norms risks attracting people who enjoy breaking social norms for the wrong reasons, which can have a snowball effect on a community.
As an example, if a community likes to make edgy misogynistic jokes, you will attract people who enjoy being edgy and misogynistic, and drive away women and people who don’t like edgy humour. This shifts the community norms towards edginess, making it more likely for more and worse misogynistic jokes to be made, that drive off kinder people, etc. This edgy death spiral can end up with an entire community full of full-on misogynists. In my many years on the internet, I have seen this kind of pattern play out over and over again in different communities.
If we want EA to be kind, empathetic, and truthful (As I obviously do), then we need to act in ways that are kind, empathetic and truthful, and hold ourselves and our leaders to those standards.